network speed question

[Lorenzo Taylor]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

I have a PC that I am using as a router/firewall.  It has 2 network cards, the
second of which (eth1) is used to connect directly to my laptop using a
crossover network cable.

The connection does work.  The only problem is that my connection speed never
exceeds 425KB/s in either direction. My connection to the internet is a full 5
megabits download speed.  But my laptop won't receive data faster than 4.5KB/s
either from the internet or directly from the PC, and it can't send at a faster
speed either.

The only way I could increase the speed between the 2 computers was to adjust
the MTU to 100 on both connected interfaces.  That gave me a maximum connection
speed of about 850KB/s but it slowed my laptop's connection down to about
50KB/s.

Both the PC and laptop are running Debian with a 2.6.11 kernel, but I have had
similar experiences with other distributions and both 2.4 and 2.6 kernels.

It is interesting to note, also, that I once had a laptop that was running WinXP
and FC3 at different times in its life.  FC3 gave me the same problem and WinXP
gave me about a 20MB/s connection going into the laptop and a 70KB/s connection
going to the PC.

Any help to clear up this problem is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Lorenzo
- -- 
- -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GCS d- s:+ a- C+++ UL++++ P+ L+++ E- W++ N o K- w---
O M V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP++ t++ 5+ X+ R tv-- b++ DI-- D+
G e* h---- r+++ y+++
- ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFC3W5MG9IpekrhBfIRAnOGAJ91/d4i4bLKKkAGg+P/DHwDkVun7gCgxapg
aOBPDUfuHIC9RueggmQwVsU=
=+pEv
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----