Stupid question about Fast Ethernet

[Gleep 0]

Ok this is really stupid and since everybody got it in school, I never asked, but can someone please explain how you enable fast ethernet?

 

I have two 10/100 cards, a 10/100 hub, and I assume I have to by red or yellow cat 5 cable. Is that it?

 

Right now my home machines are running at 10 (using blue cat 5 cable, and my old hub is only 10 Mbs 4 port hub). I also have DSL running into the Hub. I assume that I have to have that connected as is now.

 

Am I going in the right direction?

 

Also, how do I check network speed? Running 98 machines at home, but I would like to know for work too (NT/2k machines)

 

[This message has been edited by Gleep (edited 02 June 2000).]

[Palos 0]

You have the right components to enable 100 mbps. You can check that by either looking at the hub's lights (usually orange for 100 mbps), or the NIC's leds in the back, or in w2k the network connection icon in the taskbar reports the network speed.

[Bursar 0]

Some NICS may require to specifically the enable 100 MB mode.

 

It also depends on what you're using the network for as to whether it is worth enabling.

 

If you just play a few games, then you probably won't notice any difference.

 

If you transfer large files (and I do mean large), the you will some significant benefits. Otherwise you won't really notice much difference.

[clutch 1]

Don't worry dude, you sound like you are on the right track. However, as far as the speed thing goes, Win9x doesn't fully support fast ethernet; only NT and Win2K do (as far as MS stuff goes). And even then, if you force full speed (100Mbps) you may get varying performance probs on the network (corrupted transmisions, machines "disappearing", etc). It will still be faster than 10Mbps though. As far as speed checking, in Win2K you get a little icon that is very similar to the dial-up networking icon and it will tell you what you are connecting at (10Mbps or 100Mbps). You can probably get freeware/shareware programs that are much better at measuring speed however. I have used "Vital Agent", it works on Win9x, NT, 2K and is really cool. I usually use the network monitor that comes with SMS 2.0 though.

 

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Regards,

 

clutch

[Daneki 0]

I installed VitalAgentIT after Clutch mentioned it, but it doesn't seem to do jack on my home system. It's not reporting anything when I check the various monitoring options. It also says it can't run any tests on the "type" of modem I have which is an external SupraExpress 56k (hardware based.) Am I messing up something simple?

[Flitzman 0]

erm... i think that proggie only works for network cards and not for modems

[EddiE314 0]

it doesn't matter what color the cat5 is, its the same throughput. if you're only connecting two machines, just make or buy a crossover cable and connect either end to the two 10/100 cards.