XP: crossover cable connection: file sharing slow; freezes

[sinister]

I connected my desktop and laptop, both running Windows XP, using an
ethernet crossover cable. I did this a year ago with two desktops (one with
XP, the other with Windows 95) and got it to work then.

This time around, I got the connection working (meaning the computers could
see each others' shared folders), but transferring files by drag-and-drop
(or by control-c/control-v) was *sometimes* very slow. It even froze the
computer desktop occasionally; and sometimes the transfer wasn't faithful
(i.e., the files had the right size, but the contents were garbage).

What am I doing wrong?

 

[John Wunderlich]

I connected my desktop and laptop, both running Windows XP, using
an ethernet crossover cable. I did this a year ago with two
desktops (one with XP, the other with Windows 95) and got it to
work then.

This time around, I got the connection working (meaning the
computers could see each others' shared folders), but transferring
files by drag-and-drop (or by control-c/control-v) was *sometimes*
very slow. It even froze the computer desktop occasionally; and
sometimes the transfer wasn't faithful (i.e., the files had the
right size, but the contents were garbage).

Try going to the Control Panel or Device Manager of each machine and
configure your Ethernet NIC to manually set the Speed (10/100) and
Duplex (Full/Half) on each machine to agree. The default setting is to
"auto sense" and that doesn't always work correctly when cross-coupling
computers. YMMV.

HTH,
John

 

[sinister]

Try going to the Control Panel or Device Manager of each machine and
configure your Ethernet NIC to manually set the Speed (10/100) and
Duplex (Full/Half) on each machine to agree. The default setting is to
"auto sense" and that doesn't always work correctly when cross-coupling
computers. YMMV.

OK, I'll try that. Thanks for the advice!

 

[sinister]

Try going to the Control Panel or Device Manager of each machine and
configure your Ethernet NIC to manually set the Speed (10/100) and
Duplex (Full/Half) on each machine to agree. The default setting is to
"auto sense" and that doesn't always work correctly when cross-coupling
computers. YMMV.

That was the problem. Best setting was
"Auto Neg 10/100 HD/FD" on laptop,
"10BaseT" (presumably HD) on desktop.

Thanks.

 

[John Wunderlich]

That was the problem. Best setting was
"Auto Neg 10/100 HD/FD" on laptop,
"10BaseT" (presumably HD) on desktop.

Congratulations and thanks for the feedback
-- John