iMac and FreeBSD performance problems

[Keith Mitchell]

Anthony Anderberg wrote:

>>the iMac to a 10BT hub instead of the ethernet switch then everything
>>seems to work fine as well.  The iMac can talk to all the other equipment
>>without a problem when its connected to the ethernet switch.  Likewise
>>    
>>
>
>Sounds like a duplex mis-match, which is especially 
>common with unmanaged switches.  The problem 
>is that the computer and switch don't agree whether 
>their link is full duplex or half duplex.  The result is 
>undetected collisions which must be retransmitted 
>via TCP timeouts instead of being retransmitted right 
>away by the NICs.  I'd suggest setting the duplex on 
>the switch ports if possible and devices to see if a 
>combination works better, I'm not sure about the Mac 
>but you can get a list of media options on FreeBSD 
>using "ifconfig -m".
>

I have tried that but the switch seems retarded :-)  I can't force the 
switch to do anything...  If I force the computers to 100/half the 
switch leds indicate 100/full.  And if I force the computer to 100/full 
the switch detects 100/half... argh.  When I set the computers to 
autodetect then both the computers and the switch seem to agree on 
100/full (based on the ifconfig info and the leds on the switch).  And 
they seem to work unless I want the Mac and the freebsd machines to talk 
to each other.

But...  Something is definately wrong with the switch...  Out of 
frustration I went out and picked up another ethernet switch from a 
different vendor (one of the new Nway ones that supports uplink 
detection too) and with that switch everything works as expected....  I 
had thought that I ruled out the switch since I tried two different ones 
with the same result (one was a 5 year old linksys 16 port switch and 
the other is about a year old mini 5 port linksys switch).  Both were 
linksys switches though :-(  The one I bought today that seems to work 
great is a netgear switch....  Hopefully its not all linksys switches 
since I was planning on getting one of the Linksys 8 port GE switches (I 
can get a really good deal on it).  I guess i'll just have to try and 
see :-(

What i'd really like would be to get a 10/100/1000 managed switch but 
they want way too much for them to justify one for a home network :-(

Thanks.

-- 
Keith Mitchell
Email: kmitch at guru.org			PGP key available upon request