Leila/Bert/Brian:
Gosh, my last note I was having a ADD nerd attack... the advise is somewhat technical. I apologize. I was focused on the CPU; I didn't catch the note about the Win XP Home issue. Big problem!
1) I would make all computers Win XP Pro. If you look up Microsoft's advise like I just did, at
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813936/, the WinXP Home is limited to 6 computers in the LAN. Although your 7th computer is a WinXP Pro, you might want to see how your LAN does without it and make any decisions accordingly.
Note the list of differences between Win XP home and Win XP pro:
Below is a short list of supported features (URL-
http://windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=20536&DisplayTab=Article):
Backup—XP Pro has the standard Win2K backup program; XP Home has no backup program.
Dynamic Disks—XP Pro supports dynamic disks; XP Home doesn't.
IIS—XP Pro includes IIS; XP Home doesn't.
Encrypted File System (EFS) —EFS debuted in Win2K and lets you encrypt files on an NTFS partition, a very useful feature for mobile machines. XP Pro includes EFS; XP Home doesn't.
Multiprocessor—XP Pro supports up to two processors; XP Home supports only one (as did Windows Me/Win98).
Remote Assistance—Both editions support Remote Assistance, which lets someone from a Help desk connect to the client desktop to troubleshoot problems.
Remote Desktop—XP Pro adds to Remote Assistance by letting any machine running a Terminal Services client run one Terminal Services session against an XP Pro machine.
Domain Membership—XP Pro systems can be domain members; XP Home systems can't, but they can access domain resources.
Group Policy—XP Pro supports group policies; XP Home doesn't.
IntelliMirror—XP Pro supports IntelliMirror, which includes Microsoft Remote Installation Services (RIS), software deployment, and user setting management; XP Home doesn't support IntelliMirror.
Upgrade from Windows Me/Win98—Both XP Pro and XP Home support this upgrade.
Upgrade from Win2K/NT—Only XP Pro supports this upgrade.
64-bit Support—Only XP Pro will have a 64-bit version that supports the Itanium systems.
Network Support—XP Pro includes support for Network Monitor, SNMP, IP Security (IPSec), and the Client Services for NetWare (CSNW); XP Home doesn't.
Hey, some of this stuff is super-technical, even for me! But it's interesting to know. The multiprocessor support may be important for your particular situation, though.
One TIP: if you purchase a Win XP Home computer and have an old Win XP Pro disc, if 4 months have passed, you can reuse it on a new machine with normal activation. If you don't have any WinXP Pro discs around, then go to eBay and buy one for less than $130. It seems that folks are making a run on the Win XP disks before the summer- I used to get the Win XP Pro on eBay for $80 or less!
2) Try disabling all anti virus, anti spyware, and firewalls (leaving Win XP firewall "on") and try again to see if they have any effect. At least check to see if there are screen savers or virus scanning software running. If you have virus scanning software, make sure it is not scanning the data files while you are trying to access them.
3) As Bert mentioned, make sure that you are using a Switch with the proper Cat 5e/6 cables.
About another person using the "host" computer- hell, I have my office manager do the billing (using my MS Access EMR/PMS) on mine without issues. I have 8 computers logged onto her host computer. It's something that is not politically/technically correct, but heck, I'm a cheapscape, and it works fine.
Ethernet switches allow your Ethernet cards to operate in
Full Duplex mode instead of
Half Duplex. Full Duplex means that you can be sending and receiving data at the same time. Switches also
route traffic directly between ports instead of broadcasting traffic across all ports. This basically means that each port on a switch gets
dedicated bandwidth instead of shared bandwidth. When transferring large AC recordsets/files between multiple computers in a peer-to-peer file-server platform, this can make a big difference in how well your LAN operates.
4) You may need to find the offending switch or computer or cable by
process of elimination- disconnect and shut off all machines except 1 workstation and the "server" or host machine. Test different computers as the "host". See if there are variant speed issues which may be due to defective cards, cables, software. Try to isolate the problematic computer.
5) If the above doesn't work, then read my first note again.
That Tigerdirect deal is great! On eBay there were only 8 "Intel RAID Server" deals and they featured just way too much, including 2 TERABYTE systems for $1500 to $2500.
Cheers,
Al
