The network administrator at work switched out my 100BaseT hub for a 10BaseT hub. I swear my connection is a ton slower, but he claims that my dial-up like speeds are perfectly normal, and that I’m imagining things. He stated that no one else on my subnet has complained about loss of speed. The only thing I can think of that has changed since my noticing a loss of speed is my hub, which he switched for some technical reason that he didn’t really explain to me (something about “propagation”). Would a switch from 100BaseT to a 10BaseT explain a loss of speed?
There is no reason not to buy a $20 100BaseT switch. However, 10BaseT is fast enough for most home and business internet connections. Dial-up like speeds might indicate that he switched you from a switch to a hub and the network isn’t handling it (too many collisions) or the hub itself is just broken. Also, maybe one of the nodes on the network is bad and you used to have a switch before and it was isolated, but now with a hub it’s slowing everybody down.
Your internal network speed can suffer, but I don’t see why your connection to the internet would suffer, since 10 mbps is above the cap for even super-high speed connections like T1 and OC3, IIRC.
Although if he replaced a switch with a hub, then maybe it is a bit slower, since a hub sends all data everywhere and relies on your PC to decide if it needs it or not.
This sounds quite likely, since a 10BaseT device is likely to be old, whereas the 100BaseT that it replaced could be more or less new. Back in the day when 10BaseT was the norm, hubs were far more prevalent than switches.
thanks for the help so far. I realized that maybe I was using the wrong terminology (“hub”), and may have confused you all.
Here are some more details that may clear things up: the ethernet connection at my desk is an AUI cable. It used to go to a hub(?)/router thing also at my desk which had a single AUI input and multiple RJ45 outputs. They switched this device with something called an “AUI to 10BaseT Converter.” Is it possible that this thing is slowing the connection speed down?
Holy cow. The last (and only) time I’ve seen AUI cables was back when I helped re-wire my Mom’s office back in '99. The stuff was abandoned in the ceiling, and had been obsolete for ages before that. I took some 'cause wire is useful.
I didn’t even know you could get AUI cards that worked in modern OSs… is there any way you can get your NIC replaced with a 10$ 10/100 card?
It’s been a long time since I worked on anything that had an AUI interface, and I’m young enough that the only thing we ever did with AUI was attach a transceiver and hook it to 10baseT. How old is your computer? If your network card only has AUI, it’s probably very old.
If memory serves, AUI would only do the equivalent of 10baseT anyway, so your speed shouldn’t have changed at all. It could be a bad transceiver, hub/switch, cable, etc.
Actually, it is. Check the AUI converter for a dipswitch or suchlike called “SQE heartbeat” or a variation thereoff. If it’s in the wrong position, you may suffer bad, bad performance.
(SQE heatbeat is an iron-age technology, used to test the collision detection circuitry. It’s OK to have on when the AUI connection goes to a NIC. It’s disastrous if the AUI goes to a switch/hub.) Let us know how it goes ?
Wow, AUI…I’ve been doing networking for close to 10 years and never saw one. I actually had to look that up!
Ok the device with an AUI port and the Mutiple RJ45 connectors was a hub. It most likely was a 10Base-T Hub with an AUI port. Not a 100Base-T Hub.
The Converter you have is doing the same thing the hub did and really should not affect the speed but if the heartbeat indicator is set wrong it could cause the problems.