networking mixed G4s with OS9 & OSX

Started by hotmetal, January 25, 2012, 06:40:53 PM

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hotmetal

I've got a couple G4 Digltal Audios and a G4 MDD. The DA's are my digiizers, one for LPs and casettes, the other has a Nikon Coolscan and an ancient 12x19 Umax Mirage II flatbed attached.

Both scanners are narrow SCSI. I've kept that DA on 9.2.2 because the scsi card works great and I don't have to screw around with adapters and shit. Been scanning a lot of slides and negs this winter. The MDD is my "modern" Mac, with Tiger and CS3, where I do all my color corrections and stuff.

Decided to replace the old Netgear 10/100 switch with an inexpensive gigabit switch (ZyXEL GS-108B from New Egg) to speed up transferring the scans. Getting gigabit speed uploading from the DA (9.2.2) to the MDD (Tiger) just fine, but I can not figure out why the file transfers to and from the MDD G4 to the older DA G4 still poke along at 100BaseT.

It's not mission critical, since I can upload the scans from the scanner mac to the photoshop mac at full speed. But it would be nice to be able to pull scans off the scanner mac while sitting at the MDD and get the full blast of gigabit speed traveling in that direction, too.

Been too busy screwing around with this today to even hum the We're So Sorry, Uncle Albert song, sheesh!
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." ...
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Joe

Are you sure the older DA G4 has gigabit adapter in it? Is the cable going to it at least Cat5e?
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

hotmetal

Quote from: Joe on January 25, 2012, 06:53:44 PMAre you sure the older DA G4 has gigabit adapter in it? Is the cable going to it at least Cat5e?

I'm sure the DA came from the factory with gigabit wired in. It was the final grey G4 before the Quicksilver, and the G4 prior to DA was the Gigabite Ethernet Itself, the mac that moved the goalposts for built-in ethernet speeds.

My DA pushes and pulls to and from the MDD at gigabit. The weird thing is that the MDD can't push or pull data from or to the DA at gigabit, only 100BaseT. Cable is not the issue. Both machines show they're supporting gigabit in the ethernet info windows. I'll try switching around the cables into the switch next.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." ...
Hunter S. Thompson

Joe

Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

Nick Burns

Try toggling and applying back and forth to auto and gigabit. Might work, might not. Apple's networking is actually pretty flaky and very hard to pin down at times.
Oh by the way, YOU'RE WELCOME!

hotmetal

Quote from: Nick Burns on January 25, 2012, 09:25:26 PMTry toggling and applying back and forth to auto and gigabit. Might work, might not. Apple's networking is actually pretty flaky and very hard to pin down at times.

Thanks, Nick, I'll poke around some more tomorrow. But first I need to empty my Safari cache!
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." ...
Hunter S. Thompson

David

Quote from: hotmetal on January 25, 2012, 11:24:45 PM
Quote from: Nick Burns on January 25, 2012, 09:25:26 PMTry toggling and applying back and forth to auto and gigabit. Might work, might not. Apple's networking is actually pretty flaky and very hard to pin down at times.

Thanks, Nick, I'll poke around some more tomorrow. But first I need to empty my Safari cache!

atta boy, it will work wonders.
You'll also notice your skin problems will clear up as well.
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DigiCorn

Does your switch have an IP address you can log in to from an Internet browser? If you you should be able to check/set the speed. We have an HP ProCurve 1800-24G I can monitor this way.
"There's been a lot of research recently on how hard it is to dislodge an impression once it's been implanted in someone's mind. (This is why political attack ads don't have to be true to be effective. The other side can point out their inaccuracies, but the voter's mind privileges the memory of the original accusation, which was juicier than any counterargument ever could be.)"
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Nick Burns

#8
Try eliminating switch out of equation temporarily, while direct mac to mac does the problem still occur? This will determine if the switch is playing any role in this oddness.

I've seen several times where one half of the network card is failing. The first time I encountered this it took me a long long time to figure out, the network card had software that could do hardware tests and said it was fine. But if I pushed and pulled things to and from it, it became apparent (eventually) that I was getting one speed while utilizing the receiving half of the card, and another speed while utilizing the sending half of the card. Once I popped a new card in (same network cable) speed was same in both directions. You'd expect the card to either work or not, or fail the hardware test, but sometimes it just happens to be half the card is dying. Since the first time I encountered this, I now recognize the possibility and know to change the card out without spending a day scratching my head first.

If this is happening with both of your older units though, it would seem less likely that they were both failing in this manner at the same time. You could help eliminate this possibility by going direct old mac to direct old mac, push and pull from both to each other, are the speeds good then? If so, then both their cards are good.

I hate auto, but this is an unmanaged switch so you're limited. The big problem with auto is it's designed where if there's a hiccup, it will drop down to the next speed level, but often times won't ever ramp back up. I have seen devices that if auto is used in one place, then they want auto used throughout. Most PC cards' drivers only allow auto and don't have a gigabit setting at all. I've troubleshot one PC that did have the choice, and if I set it to gigabit I got hundred, but if I set it to auto, I got gigabit. Ideal is to be hard set to gigabit on all the devices that allow this, but usually we end up dealing with less than ideal circumstances.

My gut is that you have some issue with the 9.2.2 <-> 10.4.x thing, but this can be determined by process of elimination, wiring different scenarios directly, you will be able to isolate, is it the switch, is it the cards, is it the settings on the cards, is it the cross-OS thing.
Oh by the way, YOU'RE WELCOME!