Need some help with my local PC network
 

Okay so I have a gigabit switch and gigabit cards in my machines, but I'm only getting speeds of about 9mb/s between machines.

I talked to the Netgear support and they said I should be using Cat6 cables, because they're faster.. I've never heard of that, true?

Also what speeds *should* I get between two fast PC's running a gigabit network?

well bull fuck. the correct install will get you 1 gig on cat 5e.

The next Q is your ethernet cards on each pc. r they setup correctly? can they handle the bandwidth?

My PC's are fast, I have all S-ATA drives now, even a WD Raptor.. The cards I bought are gbit, but I don't remember what cards they are or anything.. Maybe I should grab some new cards.. Is there a recommended brand?

Cat 6 better spects than Cat 5e. R we talking long distance here? the difference in cable specs is splitting hairs a bit.

I probably have regular Cat5 not even e.. I see they have 5, 5e, 6, 6e?

Can your hardware handle the 1g bandwidth anyway?

Btw when I say 9mb/s I mean 9,000kb/s real-world transfer rate.. I can burn a DVD 3x faster!

The two machines I'm transferring between:

Intel e6600, 2gb DDR2, WD Raptor 10k rpm
AMD 64 3800+, 2gb DDR, 320gb SATA

They sit beside each other, no distance issues

I think the problem is from the setup of your Network Cards. Check and see if there is any setup to limit the speed if the NICs have dedicated software.

You also said something about a swich you are using. I would not choose a swich if I want high speeds because the swiches doesn't have a control managemet system of the packets sent. You may consider to buy a CISCO ROUTER .

Let us know if you resolved the problem.

Check the card(s) and router settings and make sure it's not set to 10mbps.

Even with cat 5 you should be able to transfer almost 100 mbps I would suggest thoguh buying a cat 6 cable and make sure that your cards within windows are set to full duplex

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Don't forget that transfer speeds are limited by the burst read and write speeds of each of your hard drives, and the bus you are using the Gigabit cards in. If you've got PCI cards, you'll be limited to 133 MB/second anyway (I'm sure someone will jump in and correct me on that).

Out of pure interest, why do you need Gigabit networking? If you're just shifting large files from one PC to another, FireWire is definately the way to go; it's the only protocol and standard that I've seen give real transfer speeds anywhere near what it's quoted to do.