RJ45 HUB bottleneck?

[KX]

Is it possible that a simple RJ45 hub slows down network connection? My 5 ports hub cost me about 25$
4 years ago. No hardware nor software firewall are
implemented in this hub. Any chance that this piece of hardware is the weakest link in my 10/100 network?
Thanks

[NeilNense]

ive never heard of that, but not unreasonable i guess. a HUB is a shared connection, how many computers do you have hooked up to it ?

[KX]

5 computers network. It seems to me that file transfer should be faster....

[crankz1]

I wouldn't think the hub would slow anything down. It is basically a switch though. If other computers are accessing the network at the same time, bandwidth my get limited.
I don't know if Windows 98 supports IEEE1394 (FireWire) network connections as XP does. If it does, and your computers all have FireWire ports, you can chain them together via FireWire for a 400Mbps connection.
Other than that you could upgrade you NIC's and hub to Gigabit LAN.

[Joe Hannigan]

Is your system connected to the web as well? (Router upstream from the hub?)

If so, you may have some unwelcome "critters" hijacking your system. Try unplugging your Cable modem or ISD and see if the performance comes up.

If it does you may have some house keeping to do.

Also, you may want to just power everything down (including the hub) once in a while, and let the system reset itself. Occasionally, there's a conflict on which machine gets selected when, or which machine is polling which on your network. It's a bit maddening, but XP seems to do this all much better than 98. (I wish Windows in general would have more clear documentation on how networks and hubs work, but it's mostly a lot of quesswork. Fortunately it all works...most of the time.)

[KX]

Only 1 computer is connected to internet via internal DSL. No connection sharing.

I'm looking for a lan benchmark.
I tried with SANDRA but it doesn't work.

I think it's a good idea to shut down the whole system
once in a while.

[samigascon]

if you bought your hub 4 years ago... im pretty sure its just that... a HUB, not a SWITCH with its memory. Old hubs were broadcasting all the traffic to all computers in the network and then the OS of every device selected the traffic for that machine. If you have doubts... just upgrade to any cheap switch from today... you dont have to change NOTHING... just the switch the boxes and just that =) Ahhh!!... and if its a 10/100 hub... the slowdown problem Im pretty sure that would be in a BAD DONE cable... then there are lots of errors and then lots of retransmissions.... just check in you network card properties and DONT use "Autonegotiate" or "100 Mbps"... just use "10 Half duplex"... that will give you the best speed for the worse network ;)))) Do that... or make a good 100TX cable with good materials (or buy one !!!) ;)))

[xpine73]

A hub is definitely the bottleneck of ur LAN.
Get a switcher which is much cheaper now.

[KX]

Thanks all.:)
Will get a switcher.

[KX]

Will standard switchers work with Gigalan?