UPDATE 1:
The network cards on both PC's are set to 100Mbps Half duplex. If I set the slow PC to 100Mb Full duplex, it seems to be come just as responsive as the other PC which is set to Half duplex...
Why would half duplex on 1 PC be responsive, and slow on the other PC?
ORIGINAL QUESTION:
I have 2 identical computers, brand new, and have just finished setting them up using the same instruction sheet.
For some reason, the first computer is very responsive, and the second computer is very sluggish and I can't figure out why.
If I look at the windows task manager, the networking tab, I have noticed that the responsive computer makes more used of the bandwidth, i.e. I have some mapped network drives on both PCs, accessing those network drives on the responsive PC shows the graph going up and down a large amount, i.e. upto 25% for very short periods of times. However the less responsive PC, when I do the same test, the graph only goes upto 1% and it stays at 1% for long periods of times, until the task is complete.
I have looked at the network settings, and everything seems to match on both PCs, network card, driver version, settings etc etc.
So what's going now, how do I figure out why 2 computers which should be identically, setup using the same instructions, same hardware, same drivers, same os (XP), yet 1 is very slow and 1 is very responsive. Responsive as in opening windows explorer, opening applications which need a network connection.
I have even gone as far as trying the same network point for both PCs one at a time, but still, 1 is a lot more responsive than the other.
Can someone please help?