Speed? Just a trickle...help?

[alien1]

Confused as heck here...new to broadband. I've got a replicatable problem, where using my laptop works just fine but a machine I recently put together is having lag/download speed problems.

After mucking around with the new box to the point where I actually (shudder) installed the @home software, and not getting online (was getting dhcp, pings often timed out tho'), I swapped in a new ethernet card for my box. Now I can at least connect and get online, but my download speed is worse than dialup. Unfortunately, once I had gotten online I reinstalled OS to make certain I had a clean machine, so I don't know if I was at full speed immediately after swapping the card (I doubt it), but I'm certainly not after a clean OS load.

I doubt there is any problem with my cable modem, I get 2.8 download using my laptop. Switching to the desktop it is like using a 14.4 modem...which was big dog in it's day, but does me no good now!

I'm out of network settings to check, and I doubt I need any software patches. Don't know what configuration could be done to the nic itself...I'd buy a third nic, but frankly the one I've got has been known to be good...until now.

Suggestions on where to start? PLEASE?

Thanx.

- Cable Modem, ethernet NOT usb
- works with laptop very well (nic autodetects polarity...)
- barely functions with desktop, os reloaded and nic swapped
- Does "work" to get online, barely. Net lag source is nic config?
- All TCP/IP settings the same between computers, one works, one don't!

[cyberskye]

What is the brand of your NIC and do you have the latest drivers?
What are the OSs for each machine?
How are things configured physically - router or 2ips and hub or ICS?



Cheers,

Skye

[MosDef112]

You might need to get @home to reconfigure your cable modem to accept your new NIC's MAC address. Most cable systems configure their cable modems in such way to disable data flow to any other Ethernet device that does not match the MAC address that it was registered with.