My mother runs a small business in her home, consisting of two workstations, a single printer and a SOHO router. The two computers are both wired into the central router, using Cat 5e UTP cable. LAN speed is 100Mbps. Here are the basic specifications of each machine:

Computer #1
Windows Vista
Pentium D 2.80Ghz, 2.79Ghz
2 GB RAM
150 GB HD

Computer #2
Windows XP SP2
Pentium 4 1.80 Ghz, 1.79
1 GB RAM
20 GB HD

The printer plugs into Computer #2 via USB and shares it with Computer #1. Computer #2 is a real work horse and is constantly downloading E-mail, creating and saving Word documents, editing spread-sheets and browsing the Internet, sometimes all at once. As does Computer #1, but it doesn't share a printer.

This seems to really be effecting the LAN and how smoothly it runs. When Computer #1 sends a print job, it can take several minutes for it to go through, which makes me think there is a bottleneck. It seems the average CPU baseline for Computer #2 in the middle of a work day is almost a erratic fluctuation between 15% - 60%

We can't use Computer #1 as a print server, because Windows Vista does not have the supported drivers to enable the printers scan function.

Computer #1 is also sharing a folder where both computers save there documents almost 100% of the time.

Basically, the network is pretty darn clunky. I'm considering my options and the first thing that came to mind is to purchase a server to centralize services. We could dedicate this server to printer services and file sharing and hopefully speed up jobs. It would also make administration and management easier.

Please, if anyone can offer any opinions, tips/advice, personal stories.. anything! I'd be ever grateful. Also, if anyone can recommend me a trusted way to analyze the network, in order to see what is going down? Perhaps programs like packet sniffers?

Sorry for the long post. Let me know if you could use anymore information about the computers and the network.

Thanks!

I'm no professional, but my immediate thought would be to increase the RAM of Computer #2 to 2GB and upgrade the hard drive, not only by physical size, to around 60GB, but also - if it isn't already - to a 7,200rpm disc with a large (32mb) cache. Both relatively inexpensive upgrades.
I would also consider increasing the size of the paging file on Computer #2.

This should free up resources and enable both the sharing of the networked folder and the printer a lot better than currently.

Just a thought.

Yeah, I really don't think the LAN is your problem here. 2 PC's with 100mb connections is ample.

As for your printing, I really don't think having a print server is your answer, even a dedicated one. One of the reasons printing would be slower from the remote PC, is because it needs to spool on the client, transfer that data on the server, spool that data again, and then send it to the printer. Also, the disadvantages of having a print server, is that the server needs to be on for the client to print.

One of the things that you can do to speed things up a little, on the server side, make sure that "Start printing immediately" is set for your printer settings. It may already be set already, but it's worth checking. This can be found in the Properties of your printer, under the Advanced tab. Also, as cyberdine mentioned, your PC specs are also important if you going to be using that PC as a print server.

Have you considered connecting the printer directly to the network? What printer do you have?

Hey, thanks a lot for the advice guys!

I totally agree that computer #2 needs a memory upgrade and I will increase the page file. The printer being shared is an HP LaserJet 3055 and has always been set to print immediately. I'm going to do some testing tonight and see if there are anymore clues that point directly to the problem, though I am sure that our gut feeling is right and that computer #2 needs some improvements. I'll also see what I can do about connecting the printer directly to the router.

Though, I am still considering setting up a computer and dedicating it to services. I just think it would make things much easier for them if everything is centralized. Plus I can load Apache on it to host the website I built for there business. This is going to require a little bit more thought though. Any more opinions to share?

Thanks again!

When you say slow, how long are we actually talking, say for example if you were to print this page, how long would it take before the next PC started to print? I would have expected anywhere up to a minute on your current configuration. Any longer than that for a page like this, then you may well have another problem. Look at the size of the documents that are actually being printed too.

That printer has a network port at the back of it so shouldn't have any problems at all connecting it to the network, and configuring it with and IP address, and getting the other two PC's to print to it is dead easy and won't take you any more than 10 minutes. If you would like, I can post you some instructions.

A central server is a great idea for any network. As well as a web server, users can share their files centrally, use it as an applications server for any centralised software. As the company grows this will become more and more benificial, and is a good starting point.

Yeah, it takes roughly around a minute. It could actually be a litte shorter.. you know when a printer takes more than 15 seconds to print, you start to feel like every extra second is an hour :P

Any ways, I don't know why I didn't think about setting it up as a network printer. I shouldn't have any trouble setting it up, but thank you for the offer of instructions.

I'm still considering the implementation of a server. It might be the wise thing to do in the long run, because her company does plan to expand at least to a couple more computers.

Thanks for all your help.