I use XP pro on for web/file/email/ftp server behind a router. Recently i have experienced some bottle necking while my users have been watching films and listening to music direct from this computer!! During this time my email/web/ftp server have been very slow!! What I want to do is put in a second 10/100 NIC to help improve the situation!! I understand basic routing i.e. I set up my router to send incoming requests for port 80 to my server!! What I want to do is seperate the File Server to one NIC and my other servers to the other!! I hope im making my self clear( do tend to bable) Is there a way to just get Windows to file share on one NIC? Thanks!! Rich!

I am not sure add one more NIC to solve this issue. However, If you want to try, make the two NICs are in the different subnet and use route command to point them to different directions. for example, nic one go to 10.0.0.1 to the internet and 192.168.1.1 to the LAN. For more tips or information, go to http://www.ChicagoTech.net Robert, MS-MVP/MCSE and CNE Networking, Internet, routing & VPN Support, Tips and FAQs on http://www.ChicagoTech.net

You may set QOS rules on your firewall if babdwidth is concerned. You don't give a lot of information about your diagnostic and tests. Where is the bottleneck? Why the computer is slowing down exactly?

What router do you have? Does it support QoS rules. If not, the only thing you can do is reduce the Networking RWIN value. If the RWIN value is very high, the film and audio packets (for a full RWIN size) will queue up in the ISP's server waiting on the slow modem link, and delay all other inbound packets for other services you are trying to support. Use a tool like DrTCP021.exe or TCPOptimizer to adjust the systems RWIN setting (and reboot after each change) down to smaller values. This will reduce the number of packets fo film and audio blocking the queue. The drawback of this method is that it may slow down the speed at which the system can download data and may make film and audio pause sometimes. It will reduce the maximum speed reading you get on "speed tests". But you are not running speed tests. You are trying to support multiple access and user services. It does not effect the upstream speed much, other that decreasing the hogging of the link by the downstream packets. There should not be a problem with the default Windows XP RWIN setting. So this suggests that the RWIN on your system has been tweaked to a higher value. I would expect a RWIN value between 8000 and 12000 to work best, but that depends on you links rated speed. Setting lower RWIN will decrease maximum downstream speeds, but will make all services more responsive to users when someone is doing streaming downloads.