I have a small LAN at a business (1 Netware 4.11 server and 15 Windows 9x workstations) I am getting ready to replace all (3)hubs that are currently part of the infrastructure with 10/100 switches. I would also like to change the type of duplex that is run at the server. The server currently runs at half duplex, I think if I change from hubs to switches and change that server form half to full duplex I would get alot more perfromance out of my network. My question is how to I change the duplex setting in a Netware 4.11 server?

You change or configure your speed/duplex settings on the NIC itself. Most NIC's will default to Auto/Auto. This is fine for most networks. But if you start seeing problems on the network like client disconnects, poor performance, server to server communication problems, slow logins, etc. it would probably be best to force the NIC to your desired settings. To configure the NICs, we use the Boards menu item in INETCFG to access the properties of our NIC. If you do not see the speed and duplex options in the properties of your NIC, you may need a newer NIC driver. I'm trying to do this from memory and on a Sunday morning to boot. If this is not right I'm sure somebody on the board will be along to make the necessary corrections (and thats a good thing). Hope this helps! Later! Underdog V-Peace-V

Most NICS will pick up the full duplex hub/switch automatically. However, if the land driver in your autoexec.ncf is "hard coded" to half duplex, then it won't work. From the console, load INSTALL and then NCF Files options. Look for the line(s) that load your NIC (LAN driver). For example, it might say: LOAD C:\NWSERVER\E100B.LAN SLOT=3 FRAME=ETHERNET_802.2 FORCEDUPLEX=0 NAME=E100BLAHBLAHBLAH The "FORCEDUPLEX" setting is the key. Either remove it and restart the server to see if it auto-detects the full duplex hardware or look up the driver settings that makes the NIC manually load up in full duplex mode. Jeffrey A. Worth jworth@stonesav.com

Forceduplex = 2 is the string to force full duplex can also put in speed=100 to force 100 mhz connection. Andy