I currently have the following network setup 1 Windows 2000 adv Server DC 3 Win Xp Client Stations 2 Win 2000 Client Stations 1 Lexmark C910 Printer Everything on the lan connects via Ethernet to a LinkSys EFAH08W 8 port network hub. All nic cards are 10/100 Full Duplex Capability. It is common to transfer graphic files and so on that exceed 100 megs. It appears computers on the lan are only transfering at 100kb/s at some points and faster at other times (30000kb/s) Also I can not enable 100m full duplex on the machines, If I do there appears to be packet loss / collisions and the network bandwidth usage never goes over 1% of the total available. When I set it back to 100 half duplex I can utilize 37% max. What is the problem and what do I need to buy. Thanks, Sean.

If you connect more than 5 pc's to a hub ,even at 10 mbps, the collision domain will be very buzy and your network will be slow(computers has to wait to be able to send data,collisions occur,backoff signals get sent) running at full duplex and 100mbps just make collisions occur more often...now to solve this problem you can buy a 8 port switch.It gives every computer its own collision domain thus there is less network collisions and waiting to send data.

Actually before reading your post I ordered a 16 port SMC Switch to see if that would solve this. Thanks for the answer. One more question about our server. General specs about the server. --------------- 450mhz P III 130 megs of ram Adaptec ATA RAID 1200A Controller with dual ata 133 80 gig maxtors in raid stripe 0 --------------- What do we do with the server. --------------- 1) Our server has an old Accounts DB called "Business Vision" its an old 16-bit program. There is always people querying that DB. When printing from this client software BV cant use the lexmark network driver or any lexmark driver and there has to be a local "BV COMPATIBLE" print driver installed on the client in this case HP Color Laserjet which connects via an added standard TCP/ip PORT pointing to the printer IP of the lexmark c910dn. 2)The main Printer (lexmark c910dn) software drivers are stored on the server and the clients connect to the server to send print jobs. The server then sends the job to the printer. This is used in all up to date client software for printing. 3)The server has FILE SHAREs that give access to thousands of server stored images and graphics files for labels, product sheets ect. Usally 10 - 200 megs in size. --------------- After the switch what would you do next to the server?

What's Hub kind that you using? It have to support 10/100 MB or you make straight line cable(Cross is better).