USB2 or Ethernet

[Mike.C]

I have just helped a neighbour set up her laptop with a new ISP and when we played the instruction cd it asked which cable she wanted to use to connect to the BT Homehub/internet, and its recommendation was to use the Ethernet cable because it claimed this is much faster then USB2.

Is this correct, because I always believed that USB2 was the fastest connection? We have connected the Ethernet cable for now.

One thing we did notice (which may have nothing to do with the Ethernet cable) was that her keys are very slow to react, and the letters take a faction of a second longer to appear on the screen. If for instance you type A B C D E, the letter A will appear just after you have typed B and the letter B just after you type C, does that make sense.

TIA

Cheers

Mike

 

[Smudger]

I'm no expert on PCs, but on Macs, Ethernet is about a zillion times faster. And more reliable.

Is there a control panel which sets key repeat rates? That may be the typing problem. Failing that it would be low memory IME.

 

[mr]

My choice would be for Ethernet,

as for the keys being slow to react I would suspect that there was some background process legitimate or not taking up processing power for want of a better word and causing the delay.

Cheers Mike

 

[oddsocks]

regarding USB speeds, it depends on the age of the computer and whether the port is USB1.1 or 2.0/ 'Hispeed'. Extract from :

http://www.everythingusb.com/usb2/faq.htm

USB 2.0 has a raw data rate at 480Mbps, and it is rated 40 times faster than its predecessor interface, USB 1.1, which tops at 12Mbps. Originally, USB 2.0 was intended to go only as fast as 240Mbps, but in October 1999, USB 2.0 Promoter Group pumped up the speed to 480Mbps.

As far as we know, effective rate reaches at 40MBps or 320Mbps for bulk transfer on a USB 2.0 hard drive with no one else is sharing the bus.

if you have other devices (printer, scanner camera etc) these all contend for this bandwidth.

Key is the effective rate, as the individual bits can travel at 480Mb/s but then there are gaps, contention and processing to consider - often using the computer processor rather than an USB onboard chip.

Fro Ethernet, most computers now support fast ethernet duplex at 100mb - given that there is only two devices (computer and router) both can go as fast as their processors let them - the PC has a dedicated Ethernet processor.

re the slow response - try using task manager to see what your computer is doing. Depending on the OS use Cntl Alt Del and select task manager. A small icon will appear that shows the CPU load - when doing nothing this should be 2-5%. Use the tabs to see the applications running and on the processes tab sort by CPU load. I have had a problem were works calendar takes all the CPU load

 

[Mike.C]

Thanks guys it looks like it is Ethenet then.

Oddsocks the port is USB2.

One more question, how can you find out what your download speed is?

Cheers

Mike

 

[mr]

Couple of speedtest sites
http://www.speedtest.net/ (which is suspiciously pretty.
and http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html

Cheers Mike

 

[David.Spavin]

If you are using a bt home hub you can find your upstream and downstream speed by opening the Hub Manager program

 

[Mike.C]

Thanks for the links Mike and for the info David.

The reading between the Homehub and speedtest site are completely different.

Homehub 8096Kbps download. 489kbps upload

Thinkbroadband.com/speedtest 3456Kbps download. 298kbps upload

How can there be this huge difference? Are Bt telling porky pies to make their ISP 8mb claims look good?

Cheers

Mike

 

[MrJay]

It makes not a dot of difference of course. Your connection to the intertubes is capped at a speed well below what either USB or Ethernet will handle with ease. That said, there is a certain logic to using a network connection to connect to a network. USB will require strange drivers and all sorts of coaxing to turn it into a network connection.

No, BT aren't telling porkys - they're quite upfront about the fact that the advertised speeds are the maximum possible rather than what you should actually expect on a day to day basis.

 

[Mike.C]

Thanks for the info Mr Jay.

Cheers

Mike