Is there such thing as a better NIC for broadband?

[iklebrit]

im just wondering as im currently using a 3com 3c905b-tx nic
if there would be something better and would it be worth it?
im just enquiring as i used onboard nics until the i have had a fault and had to resort to a backup, and the onboard one sempt alot smoother than the 3com, but didnt want to download at full wack.
also is there an improvement if you use cat6 cable rather than cat5?
this is just for broadband no LAN. (using 3com cmx cable modem)

[SMHarman]

Should not make a diference, cable or NIC. Are the NIC drivers up to date?

[ian@huth]

Have a read of what Robin Walker has to say on the subject

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robin.d.../basicset.html

Originally Posted by iklebrit

im just wondering as im currently using a 3com 3c905b-tx nic
if there would be something better and would it be worth it?
im just enquiring as i used onboard nics until the i have had a fault and had to resort to a backup, and the onboard one sempt alot smoother than the 3com, but didnt want to download at full wack.
also is there an improvement if you use cat6 cable rather than cat5?
this is just for broadband no LAN. (using 3com cmx cable modem)

Any NIC with the correct drivers should work perfectly, the slowest NIC's run at 10mbps which is 10x faster than a 1mbps BB connection. Cat6 will make no difference - Cat5 will run at 10 or 100 mbps, cat6 is for even faster speeds, all way beyond your BB connection speed.

[iklebrit]

im using the latest 3com drivers set up as follows

802.1p =disabled <-- have no idea what this is for??
down poll rate = 8 <-- have no idea what this is for??
flow control = enabled <-- have no idea what this is for??
Media type = 10Mb half duplex
Rx checksum offload = disabled <-- have no idea what this is for??
Tx checksum offload = disabled <-- have no idea what this is for??

when im using edonkey it says im downloading at say 40, so theres theoretically 30KB/sec left to use, but when i click on a link in explorer it seems to hold for a few seconds then the page loads.

You don't need to worry about any of those settings except the media type - this needs to be the same setting as the CM's ethernet port.

Don't forget that high cpu usage will slow down IE as well as actual download bandwidth.

[punky]

Originally Posted by iklebrit

im using the latest 3com drivers set up as follows

802.1p =disabled <-- have no idea what this is for??
down poll rate = 8 <-- have no idea what this is for??
flow control = enabled <-- have no idea what this is for??
Media type = 10Mb half duplex
Rx checksum offload = disabled <-- have no idea what this is for??
Tx checksum offload = disabled <-- have no idea what this is for??

when im using edonkey it says im downloading at say 40, so theres theoretically 30KB/sec left to use, but when i click on a link in explorer it seems to hold for a few seconds then the page loads.

Firstly,I've had a look at 802.1p seems to be for polling and prioritizing traffic. 802.1 generally is the group for LAN management.

Secondly, try using full duplex and seeing if that speeds it up, it should. If you are going to test the speed use a speed test like Robin's or ADSL Guide's.

HTH

[ian@huth]

If you are using p2p software you may be nowhere near your download limit but if your upstream is being maxed out then download speed will suffer dramatically. Try throttling back your uploads to see if it makes a difference.

[iklebrit]

the speed isnt a problem, i get almost dead on top speed in speed test, i just get pauses, before pages load, processor usage hangs around 0-5% just downloading from edonkey,

robin walker recommends the 10 half duplex setting for cmx modems, and it works better with that setting.

[iklebrit]

Originally Posted by ianathuth

If you are using p2p software you may be nowhere near your download limit but if your upstream is being maxed out then download speed will suffer dramatically. Try throttling back your uploads to see if it makes a difference.

im using 12 upload at the moment, if i use 10 it makes no difference.

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by iklebrit

the speed isnt a problem, i get almost dead on top speed in speed test, i just get pauses, before pages load, processor usage hangs around 0-5% just downloading from edonkey,

robin walker recommends the 10 half duplex setting for cmx modems, and it works better with that setting.

What are your free user and GDI resources like when your browsing slows?

[iklebrit]

pf usage 248MB

commit charge (k)
total 255236
limit 4094364
peak 669768

physical memory (k)
total 1048048
available 482920
system cache 756936

kernal memory (k)
total 70868
paged 40568
nonpaged 30300

doesnt change at all when in it pauses.
will a higher pci latency help this out?

[Nutty]

802.1p =disabled <-- have no idea what this is for??
down poll rate = 8 <-- have no idea what this is for??
flow control = enabled <-- have no idea what this is for??
Media type = 10Mb half duplex
Rx checksum offload = disabled <-- have no idea what this is for??
Tx checksum offload = disabled <-- have no idea what this is for??

Turn the checksum offloads on, this will remove some calculations from the cpu.

Peer 2 peer softwaer greatly depends on the amount of uploading your peers are doing. Theres alot of leechers (ppl who dont uploads any/much) so typically speeds aren't great.

Web browsing pauses are more likely due to DNS servers being max'd out

[iklebrit]

well ive turned the computer off for a few hours and its seems to be loads better. i turned the checksum back on, and all is well.

thanks all.

[Matth]

Even if you were on 1 Megabit, 1.5 Megabit - or even 2 or 3, a PCI slot 10/100 LAN card would not be breaking into a sweat.

Any problems are more likely the DNS servers or the proxies, and for HTTP/FTP downloads, get a download accelerator that can do 2 or more streams (actually, more than 2 is often unproductive, especially for many FTP's where the extra threads will just fail, or may even get you an IP adress ban for "hammering").

Fresh Download (registerware) or Download Express (free/liteware) are worth a look.
http://www.freshdownload.com/ - be aware, the price is a spamvertising email every time they update something, even if it's NOT the one you registered - I belive it IS confined to just them though - not seen any other additional spam to the address I used.

http://metaproducts.com/mp/mpProducts_Detail.asp?id=18
Has additional features which terminate after 30 day trial - should continue to function (freeware mode) in the same way as previous versions