Re: New guy question

On Tue, Mar 16, 2004 at 11:13:38AM -0500, Jon Harmer scratched on the wall:
> I apologize if this is an oft-asked question, I've poked around the
> manual and the AT site some, and haven't found anything about this:
>
> Are the interfaces in the Audiotron supposed to be half duplex?

  The interface on the AT is 10-base-T only.  Although the standards
  allow you to run 10-base-T at full duplex, 10Mb-only chips that
  support this are fairly rare.

  On the other hand, chips that support both 10-base-T and 100-base-TX
  (and perhaps 1000-base-T) almost universally support full-duplex at
  all speeds.  Unfortunately, the AT does not have one of these.

> I think mine is showing up that way, and it is acting strangely when
> hooked up to my DLink wirelessG bridge.

  Wireless connections have a huge amount of overhead and are
  inherently half-duplex since they are all-- literally-- broadcast
  traffic.  802.11g also suffers from greatly degraded performance in
  the presence of even a single 802.11b client (I don't know if that
  is an issue in this case or not).  Wireless-to-wireless connections
  (for example AT w/ Bridge <-> wireless laptop via an access point)
  have twice the overhead (and bandwidth usage) of wireless-to-wired
  connections (for example, AT w/ Bridge <-> Access Point <-> computer
  via wired network).  This all adds up to very little extra room in
  the pipe and packet stutter.

  I would strongly recommend you use a wired network to feed your AT if
  at all possible.  If this is impossible (and you have an 802.11g access
  point) be sure there are no 802.11b clients (other bridges or wireless
  NICs in laptops and/or desktops, neighbor's machines).  Look for
  problem areas like microwaves and 2.4GHz cordless phones.  Try to
  have your music server on the wired side of things, not as another
  wireless machine.  Turn up the buffer on the AT.

  Even with these precautions, WAV files can still be tricky.  It
  depends a lot on your signal strength to the bridge and what your
  neighbors are doing at those frequencies.

   -j

--
                     Jay A. Kreibich | Integration & Software Eng.
                        jak@xxxxxxxx | Campus IT & Edu. Svcs.
          <http://www.uiuc.edu/~jak> | University of Illinois at U/C

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