ADSL - Slowing Down My Home Network

Hi - I am new to ADSL (went live yesterday0 and enjoying the benefits on my
main PC. I have this one cat5'd and two others - 1cat5'd and 1 wirelessly -
connected to my ADSL Router/Wireless Access Point/Modem unit - a Netgear
DG834G. All the PC's are running Windows XP Pro SP1a.

The router has been in situ for three months and has been working fine but
since applying what I thought were correct settings, the network and
browsing the internet have been terribly slow, nothing like that experienced
on the main pc.

I have checked and double checked the settings given to me by Pipex (Xtreme
1mb connection) and the only thing I can think of is that as I have a laptop
running Windows 98SE, I have been used to setting the PC IP Addresses
manually. Netgear is recommending me to apply DHCP settings, which if I'm
reading this correctly, means that I have to tell XP to get the addresses
manually. In the past when I have done this, it has caused network
problems - slow connections and bootups etc., which were put down to having
XP and 98 pc's on the same network.

However this may not be the problem. Before I ring Pipex I wondered if
there is a something I've done wrong? Can't understand why my main pc works
and the other two don't. The specific problem experienced is that Windows
explorer crashes when accessing othe networked pc's and web pages take an
eternity to load - much slower in fact than my previous dialup! The only
thing I've done since running the DG834G as a pure router (pre broadband),
is that I've added the gateway IP - 192.168.0.1 (as is usual and as
allocated to the router already) and the two DNS server addresses given by
Pipex, the primary and the secondary. Why has this slowed everything down?

Help please somebody

Paul


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Sorry - I should have said tell XP to get the IP addresses automatically not
manually as I stated above

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"Paul" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:40354cd6$0$17073$(E-Mail Removed) ...
> Hi - I am new to ADSL (went live yesterday0 and enjoying the benefits on
my
> main PC. I have this one cat5'd and two others - 1cat5'd and 1
wirelessly -
> connected to my ADSL Router/Wireless Access Point/Modem unit - a Netgear
> DG834G. All the PC's are running Windows XP Pro SP1a.
>
> The router has been in situ for three months and has been working fine but
> since applying what I thought were correct settings, the network and
> browsing the internet have been terribly slow, nothing like that
experienced
> on the main pc.
>
> I have checked and double checked the settings given to me by Pipex
(Xtreme
> 1mb connection) and the only thing I can think of is that as I have a
laptop
> running Windows 98SE, I have been used to setting the PC IP Addresses
> manually. Netgear is recommending me to apply DHCP settings, which if I'm
> reading this correctly, means that I have to tell XP to get the addresses
> manually. In the past when I have done this, it has caused network
> problems - slow connections and bootups etc., which were put down to
having
> XP and 98 pc's on the same network.
>
> However this may not be the problem. Before I ring Pipex I wondered if
> there is a something I've done wrong? Can't understand why my main pc
works
> and the other two don't. The specific problem experienced is that Windows
> explorer crashes when accessing othe networked pc's and web pages take an
> eternity to load - much slower in fact than my previous dialup! The only
> thing I've done since running the DG834G as a pure router (pre broadband),
> is that I've added the gateway IP - 192.168.0.1 (as is usual and as
> allocated to the router already) and the two DNS server addresses given by
> Pipex, the primary and the secondary. Why has this slowed everything
down?
>
> Help please somebody
>
> Paul
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> This footnote confirms that this email message
> has been swept by Norton AntiVirus for the
> presence of computer viruses.
>
> This computer is protected
> by GIANT Company's Spam Inspector
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>

Paul wrote:
>
> I have checked and double checked the settings given to me by Pipex (Xtreme
> 1mb connection) and the only thing I can think of is that as I have a laptop
> running Windows 98SE, I have been used to setting the PC IP Addresses
> manually. Netgear is recommending me to apply DHCP settings, which if I'm
> reading this correctly, means that I have to tell XP to get the addresses
> manually. In the past when I have done this, it has caused network
> problems - slow connections and bootups etc., which were put down to having
> XP and 98 pc's on the same network.

When the machines are on dhcp, what addresses are they getting?

> However this may not be the problem. Before I ring Pipex I wondered if
> there is a something I've done wrong? Can't understand why my main pc works
> and the other two don't. The specific problem experienced is that Windows
> explorer crashes when accessing othe networked pc's and web pages take an
> eternity to load - much slower in fact than my previous dialup! The only
> thing I've done since running the DG834G as a pure router (pre broadband),
> is that I've added the gateway IP - 192.168.0.1 (as is usual and as
> allocated to the router already) and the two DNS server addresses given by
> Pipex, the primary and the secondary. Why has this slowed everything down?

I would suggest it hasn't, but what is probably happening is that the
NICs are negotiating the incorrect network speed with the router. Try
fixing the speed to either 100MB full duplex, or 10MB half-duplex. This
shouldn't be an affect of setting the NICs to auto dhcp tho' so may be a
red herring. Still worth a try tho':-)