Too mean to buy a router - XP LAN problem?

H3LL

Illuminator
H3LL
Joined
Jul 21, 2004
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Now that MrsH3LL has joined the forum (thanks to everyone that gave advice BTW) her browser will not connect to the forums. :(

Both PCs use XP Pro. but we only use the built in ability to share the 1MB ADSL connection.

This is OK most of the time, although some websites have always been difficult/impossible to reach (google is slow to load) on her PC. This is particularly annoying as she cannot get any JREF pages to load.

My PC is the primary connection. The firewall is not causing the problem and we are to mean to buy a router (about 800RMB).

We both have IE, Avant Browser and Mozilla available to browse, but still no joy with any of them on her PC. Proxies don't help either.

Local sites are blisteringly fast on both PCs.

Any tips from LAN gurus out there.

Thanks

:D
 
Can I just clarify a couple of points?

Is your ADSL connection to an ADSL modem which is connected to your PC via USB cable?

Do both PC's connect to a hub/switch via ethernet cable? If so what is the speed rating of the hub (10 or 100Mbit)?

Are both PC's relatively modern?

I would add that the best answer to this problem is to buy a router and have both PC's routed through it. Internet connection sharing is OK at a pinch but is never as good as a straight connection.
 
Are both PCs on the same workgroup? Make sure they are if not, though this shouldn't really matter. It will do if one of them is a business PC on a domain and the other is standalone home system.

If they are connected using a single cable (otherwise known as a crossover cable) there shouldn't be any hardware problem causing the sloth. Likewise a hub, even a 10MB one, shouldn't cause a slow internet problem.

You mention local sites are fine and the currency is RMB. Is that Renminbi and you're in China? I seem to to remember that the Chinese govt monitors external sites, so all requests for non-Chinese sites might go through a special proxy, which is confused by the way your PC is sending requests from two PCs. A Router therefore may not solve the problem.

Get another ADSL line. If you don't, you obviously don't love MrsH3ll enough...
 
Sorry, I should have said more.

PC--> Ethernet -->PC (Primary connection) --> Ethernet --> ADSL Modem --> Land Line.

Both PCs relatively modern. Primary connection PC is a P4 2.4GHz 512MB RAM, the other is a P3 860 Mhz 256MB RAM.

D-Link DFE-530TX PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter (rev.C) ethernet cards x3.

Modem (Chinese) 大亚科技 (Da Ya Ke Ji) model: DB102-A.
 
OK H3LL that sounds fairly standard, you seem to be using a crossover cable to connect the 2 PC's directly.

Have you run the Internet connection sharing troubleshooter from the help menu? On both PC's? It uses little wizards to help with ICS. I have found them to be helpful in the past and they ask most of the questions that I would ask.

Start - Help and Support - Fixing a problem - Network problems - ICS troubleshooter.

What happens if you connect MrsH3LL's PC directly to the ADSL connection? (default gateway should be changed to modems address).
 
Stab in the dark, but I wonder if DNS isn't passed properly to the second computer. If you find you can't get to http://www.randi.org/ (note: not forums.randi.org) try http://63.118.175.191/ instead. If that works, just give http://www.randi.org/ another try to be sure.

As Oleron said you're using a pretty standard setup, but it's possible that DNS for non-local webservers is taking too long to get back through the "window" in your primary PC.

Have you got Windows XP Service Pack 2? If the firewall is enbabled on either PC, try disabling it (temporarily!).

David
 
Thanks everyone.

I've tried a few ideas, but no joy yet. I cannot read anything on the other PC (not my language) and following the icons only gets me so far. I will have to wait until we can do it together to try all the ideas.

I'll let you know when we have had a go.
 
I am not sure how the internet infrastructure is organised in china, but I would bet that bandwidth for citizens out of the country is not exceptional, and this would explain the slow speed of connections outside of your general area.

I cant see how the first computer would not be passing on DNS to the second computer, as windows should be configured to do this. If you can load a page like google by typing "google.com" from either computer, then it probably isnt a dns problem.

As far as the fourms go, the windows firewall may be trying to block some communication between your computer and jref.
 
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