SEPTEMBER 2002 - Vol 18 - Issue 09

Newsletter - Internet Edition

In the last three weeks, I have been asked the same question by several different people who either have set up a home network, or are thinking about setting one up. Their problems or questions are about how to use a full auto-sensing switch in the network. I first need to explain a switch. Most people understand a hub, a device that allows you to connect from 4 to 32 computers together. Hubs have a common problem: they force everyone on the network to use the same network speed. If the hub is a 10 base-T hub, a 100 base-T card cannot communicate. If that same hub is a 100 base-T hub, a 10 base-T card cannot communicate. The next device was a manual switch. The hub/switch was really a hub that you could switch to either high speed (100 base-T) or low speed (10 base-T) for all ports. You were still forced to have a network card (NIC) that is the same speed as everyone else. If you purchase a dual speed hub/switch, this is what you are purchasing. The next generation was a full network switch. The network switch allowed you to manually select the speed of every port on the switch. For the first time, you could have 10 base-T and 100 base-T NICs talking on the same network at the same time. You really needed an auto-switching NIC in the "server" that would change speeds depending on what speed the NIC was accessing the server. Almost all of the full network switches "assumed" that you were using 10 base-T networking until it saw a 100 base-T connection. Today we have low cost fully auto-sensing network switches on the market, and they work great . . . except if used with new NICs that are auto-sensing!!!! The new auto-sensing switches need to see one connection at a fixed speed to act as a default and to set the switch up on the network. Here is how the problems come about: a person has set up their network, using a new auto-sensing NIC in every computer on the network. They then plug in the auto-sensing switch. As computers are started and installed on the network, the NIC in the computer asks the hub what speed to use. The switch, at the same time, asks the NIC what speed to use. The NIC again asks the switch, and does not get a fixed speed, so the switch again asks the NIC what speed it wants to use. This can continue "forever" but usually the switch gives up after 30 minutes or so. The whole time, the lights on the switch are flashing like mad. The more computers on the network, the faster the flashing, and still no one can see anyone else.
So, what do you do? I will give you general instructions, as every network card and the associated drivers are different. On the "server," the machine that usually is on the network first, you need to change a network setting for the network card. Navigate to the network settings icon in the control panel of your operating system, as shown in Figure 1.
In this example, the operating system is Windows 2000 Pro, and we are using a 3C905B-TX network card. Click on the configure button, and you will get another window, as shown in Figure 2.
You then need to click on the Advanced tab to bring up the window where we need to make the changes. If you look at Figure 3, you will see that Media Type was selected, and in the pull down box under Value, 100mb Full Duplex was selected. After making the selection, click on OK and exit all the dialog boxes, back to the desktop. You will need to fully shut down the system and leave it off for 60-90 seconds. You can then restart the computer. This time the NIC will start, only using 100 base-T (100mb full duplex) and the auto-sensing switch will know that this is the default speed for the switch. As other systems join the network, the switch will ask if the NIC in the joining system supports the network default of 100 base-T. If so, the new system will join at that speed. If not, it will try the 10 base-T and, if successful, the switch will know to automatically switch back and forth between high and low speed between the systems. Many auto-sensing switches, as soon as you have a successful connection, will retain that default speed and that solves the problem in the future, but you should consider leaving one system at a fixed speed to ensure that you never have this problem again.
About the author: Mr. Slough (jon.slough@verizon.net) has been a computer user and programmer since 1975. He has used on-line data transmission since 1976 starting with early computer on-line time-sharing. Since building his first computer in 1981 he has provided technical service, hardware support, and programming services on a personal and professional basis in the northern Indiana area. His experience with computers has led him to hold several offices on the Board of Directors including President, Vice-President, and Program Director during his 10+ years of membership. Slough has been a regular contributor to the EPCUG newsletter since 1996 writing prominent series such as "Y2K and the Family", "The Hard Drive Crash: What is it and how do I avoid it?", and "High-Speed Internet Connections and Security Procedures".

Like most computer professionals, I have for years riled against using a single large hard drive in operating systems. As hard drives have grown larger, the single large hard drive problem has got worse. In Windows 95 it was bad; a 2GB hard drive that was not maintained would fail. With Windows 98 the problems got worse, and with today's 40GB and 60GB, the single hard drive problems are even nastier.

Today, I was at a customer whose computer has Windows 98 1st edition with an 8GB hard drive that has not been defragged in 687 days. Windows 98 could not determine the last time that Scandisk was run. The drive only had 2.5GB of data on the drive, but Windows 98 could not defrag the drive!

What to do, what to do? The IT person, who confessed that they had little training on Windows 98, was ready to "blow off the data, reformat the drive, and re-install a clean copy of Windows 98." They admitted that it would take them about 6 hours of total time to do the job. The system only had a few applications, but had many very large image files in 5 directories.

I happened to have a copy of Partition Magic 7 with me, so I installed the software on the system, taking less than 3 minutes, including a reboot of the system. While staying within Windows 98, I quickly used the new graphical interface and resized the primary partition to about one half of the hard drive. I then created a new partition and called it Drive Q so as not to interfere with network drive settings already on the computer.

I then copied the data from Drive C to my new Drive Q. This effectively defragmented those files, because when files are copied, they are copied as a single item. After ensuring that all the files had copied to Drive Q, I deleted the data from Drive C. The IT person was horrified that I would do such a thing!

I quickly explained that the data was on Drive Q and that everything was fine. I then entered Windows 98 Scandisk, which had failed often before, and ran the program. In less than 10 minutes, the reduced-size drive C was successfully checked, repaired, and then the physical hard drive sectors were successfully scanned. The IT person was stunned at the results. There was more to come.

I was told that this machine had never successfully completed a Defrag of the drive, since the day it came out of the box. Defrag was started, and in 45 minutes, it successfully corrected the badly fragmented Drive C, and showed a large reduction in used space. I then recopied the data from my Drive Q back to Drive C and ran the imaging program. Images that took more than two minutes to open only minutes ago, now came up in less than 15 seconds. Same computer, same operating system, same memory, but with a clean defragmented hard drive.

Using Partition Magic again, I removed Drive Q and resized Drive C back to maximum size, as it had been when I started. Using Partition Magic, I changed a 6-hour job to a 1-hour job. For the customer, this was a savings of more than $325, enough to purchase 4 copies of Partition Magic and have $45 change left over!

Partition Magic 7 works well on Windows XP, Windows 2000 Pro, Windows ME, and all Windows 98 systems. If you purchase a new computer with Windows XP, you can use Partition Magic to create several drive partitions, and ensure smooth operation of your new system. Breaking up a 60 GB hard drive into 3 or 4 partitions is strongly recommended. The first is for the operating system and applications that must be on Drive C. The second partition is for applications like Office and those that do not need to be on Drive C. The third partition is for data, and this includes your documents. If you have a fourth partition, it will be for backing up data.

Partition Magic offers several real advantages for those who are upgrading from Windows 98 or Windows ME. First, you can set up a multiple boot system and install a clean copy of Windows XP or Windows 2000 Pro, using the advanced NTFS file system, and still keep your current operating system. For those of you who have older DOS programs that run under Windows 98 but not under the newer DOS-less Windows, you can still run your old programs, and also have a newer version of Windows for newer applications.

A second advantage is that, with two operating systems successfully installed, Partition Magic can be used to create a third "shared drive" partition that is formatted using FAT 32 file format. This partition is where you put files to be shared between, for example, an application running in Windows 2000 Pro under NTFS, and a different application running in Windows 98, as Windows 98 cannot read the NTFS format used by Windows 2000 Pro.

Well, I don't know that it will be much of a run for anybody's money, but the official elections will be held at this month's meeting. The slate is full, which means we have one candidate for each slot. Sounds like they are pretty much shoe-ins, unless someone pipes up at the meeting. But, the floor will be open for final nominations before the elections, just incase you didn't get a chance to volunteer to take a position! Remember that several of the officers can use helpers, such as holding down the fort at the sign in table for the membership chairman, or taking the sorted newsletters to the post office for him. You can write articles for the newsletter editor, or proofread them for her. Little things go a long way, and you wouldn't have to volunteer to do them every month, maybe just 2-3 times, and someone else might be willing to help another 2-3 months. A special thank you to the following people for allowing their names to be placed on the ballet for officers for the 2002-2003 year:

President	Bill Van Patten, Jr
Vice President	Bob Hess
Secretary	Linda Corwin
Program Director	Sam Kulp
Membership Director	John Monk
Director-at-large	Tom Mulligan
Director-at-large	Ken Kendall

The Elkhart PC Users Group's Computer Recycling Special Interest Group (SIG) had a very eventful year. I took over leadership of the SIG in April after the previous co-leaders, Bob Brown and Sherry Nisly stepped aside. It is to their credit that I found the SIG in fairly good shape when I took over its leadership.

In the months that I have led the SIG, we were able to find homes for nearly 50 used computers. That is 50 computers, monitors, mice, keyboards and printers that might have otherwise found their way into a local landfill. These computers had been donated to the SIG by EPCUG members, individuals and area businesses. Their original owners had upgraded to better computers and no longer had any need for these older machines. A dedicated group of EPCUG volunteers works very hard to refurbish these computers and make them once again fit for everyday use.

Notable among our donors were: The Honeywell Corporation in South Bend and Church World Service in Elkhart. Honeywell donated nearly 150 used computers to the SIG. A big thanks goes to EPCUG member Paul Boggs. Many of you may know Paul as the guy who supplies and runs the public address system that we use during our meetings at High Dive Park.

Paul, who works for Honeywell, put many hours into securing the donation of the computers and transporting them. In addition, Paul was able to secure the use of a metal pole barn, owned by his uncle, to store the computers from Honeywell. Simply put, without Paul's efforts, we would not have been able to obtain the computers from Honeywell.

Church World Service, a worldwide relief agency based in Elkhart, donated 20 computers to the SIG when the organization decided to upgrade the computers used by its office staff.

In addition to Church World Service and Honeywell, a steady flow of smaller donations also trickles in on a regular basis. Though these donations are not of the stature as what were received from Honeywell and Church World Service, each donated computer is appreciated because each machine keeps the Recycling SIG busy doing the work it was set up to do.

In addition to our normal work of refurbishing and distributing donated computers, the SIG participated in a rather unique project in January. The Hope Rescue Mission, in South Bend, approached EPCUG with a project to rebuild a number of computers owned by the mission. These computers are now being used by the mission to teach computer skills to its clients.

Another notable project was brought to us by Bill Murray, an active EPCUG member. Bill has a brother in-law, who runs a missionary school in a remote area of Haiti. In addition to providing Christian education, the mission also aims to equip its students with skills that would enable them to move to a larger city where they can get jobs. The SIG prepared 26 computers, monitors, keyboards and a couple of printers. Bill is making arrangements on his own to ship the computers to Haiti.

While in the process of making those arrangements, Bill discovered another, similar mission that is also interested in receiving donated computers. While this second shipment is still in the planning stages, together with the computers headed to Bill's brother in-law, there will be some 50 computers from right here in Michiana helping poor Haitian youngsters learn computer skills.

The computers for Haiti have been prepared outside of the monthly Build Days, where the most visible work takes place. We decided on taking this route in the interest of avoiding a situation where we had too many cooks preparing the soup.

This report would not be complete without thanking Lawrence Beer and Primerica Financial Services, who are the landlords of our computer recycling facility. Referred to by various SIG participants as 'the pit' or 'the hole,' Primerica has allowed the SIG to use an unfinished basement area in the firm's offices, located at 135 S. Main St. in Goshen. The space is not all that pretty and, as you enter it, you do get the feeling you are entering the underworld. The thing to remember is this space works for us and Primerica does not charge us rent for its use. Without the support Mr. Beer gives us, I'm not sure how we would be able to operate the SIG.

A big thank you also goes out to those EPCUG members who volunteered their time and expertise to the SIG during the past year. Whether you are experienced in getting old, outdated computers to work or if your primary area of expertise lies with a spray cleaner bottle, your talents are appreciated. That goes whether you helped just one month or if you are one of the regulars who shows up every month.

The Computer Recycling SIG accepts donations of Pentium class or later computers and peripherals like printers and monitors. Not all the computers that are offered are accepted. Those that are declined (i.e., 486 and earlier computers) are simply too slow or too far out of date to be useful. Of the computers that are accepted, I would guess about half are working machines. Those that cannot be made to work are stripped of useable parts that can be used in other computers. The donated computers are refurbished and then donated to nonprofit groups, charities and disadvantaged households.

If you have a computer you would like to donate, you can E-mail me at bruce-vd@attbi.com or you can call me at (574) 232-1244. If you or someone you know of would like to receive one of our donated computers, requests must be made in writing.

Requests can be made by E-mail to epcug@epcug.org or to me at bruce-vd@attbi.com. Requests can also be sent via snail mail to me in care of:

Elkhart PC Users Group
P.O. Box 13
Elkhart, IN 46515

I want to thank all of you who helped make the SIG successful this past year. Hopefully, with your help we can make the SIG even more successful in the coming year. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bruce Von Deylen, EPCUG's Public Relations Director and Recycling SIG Leader, is self-employed as a personal computer repair technician. Working under the name of The PC Guy, Bruce has been helping computer users professionally since 1996. Holding an A+ certification, Bruce spent nearly 20 years in journalism, working most recently for the South Bend Tribune. A South Bend resident, Bruce joined the Elkhart PC Users Group in January 2001. His E-mail address is bruce-vd@attbi.com

Once again it is time for a change in governance for EPCUG and an opportunity for new ideas and programs. I am very optimistic about the future of our organization. We have known members that are new candidates that will do an excellent job in office. We also are blessed with some who are willing to return to posts that they have held for some time. Their past efforts are appreciated and we are fortunate to have them for the future.

In the past year EPCUG has had two relatively new members come forward to take on Director responsibilities and they have done a splendid job. For the upcoming year we have two more who have decided to "give it a shot." This is the basis of my optimism for the future of EPCUG. Continued involvement of "old hands" lends stability and uniformity to the organization, but new people will infuse new ideas and approaches. This, more than anything else, will strengthen the organization and ensure it's future.

I wish to extend my thanks to my follow Officers and Directors for their efforts during the past year - sometimes under trying circumstances. Let us also take the time to remember the contributions of our friend and Web Director Mark Meidel who died this past year. Special thanks to Sherry Nisly, for everything (and at times it appeared to be nearly everything); Bruce Von Deylen, for his outstanding efforts at Public Relations; Tom Fish, for taking over Mark's responsibilities at the crucial moment; Paul Boggs, for the audio equipment; and Ken Kendall, for the free use of his video projector.

And an extra special thanks to Jon Slough, for taking over the Q&A sessions for the past year. Before I took office, I asked Jon if he would be willing to do so and his response was "I'll be there" - and he has been. Thanks for your generous response, Jon.

See you all at the meetings, Bob.