network help...PLEASE

[drawls31]

can anybody please tell me how i can make my companies LAN work better?
I am an electrician on an offshore oil rig.I have very limited admin.rights so i can't download anything like adaware or something to remove the crap off of our computers.That crap really slows us down.And most of the time the net is the only way our workers communicate with their families.I'm just trying to make life easier for all of us.we spend a month at a time out here.So we really don't want to deal with crappy internet service on top of being stuck out here.
THANKS FOR ANY HELP YOU CAN GIVE.

 

[lemri]

can anybody please tell me how i can make my companies LAN work better?
I am an electrician on an offshore oil rig.I have very limited admin.rights so i can't download anything like adaware or something to remove the crap off of our computers.That crap really slows us down.And most of the time the net is the only way our workers communicate with their families.I'm just trying to make life easier for all of us.we spend a month at a time out here.So we really don't want to deal with crappy internet service on top of being stuck out here.
THANKS FOR ANY HELP YOU CAN GIVE.

Besides replacing hardware, there isn't much you can do without administrative rights. Find out who has administrative rights and try to convey the importance of cleaning up the computers or granting you rights. Make sure the computers have firewalls, antivirus, et cetera.

On a hardware note you can do a few things. If you are on an older lan, you can replace any hubs with switches. You can replace Ethernet cords that are older then 5e to 5e. With administrative rights, you could replace computers.

At the end of the day tho, you really need to communicate your needs with an administrator or find a way to get administrative rights.

 

[drawls31]

Thanks

Thank you so much for responding.
we use cat 5 cables now what could i do to upgrade this.
I'm sorry for all the questions,i'm actually a pretty good electrician,but this is a new ballgame for me.

 

[Yakob]

try upgrading hardware (lan hubs/switches) or even get updated software (v1-v2 sort of thing)

 

[lemri]

If you are having software issues--like spyware, hardware upgrades probably will not help. Redoing the wires will be a particular expensive pain. Seriously, who is the person with administrative privileges?

If you are going to do the hardware route, then the cheapest best upgrade is switching from a hub to a switch.

Both look the same--a little box that has an ethernet cord that plugs into it form the wall. There are then several outlets to plug in ethernet cords to each of your computers.

The difference is that each time you send information (IE internet) via a hub, it gets sent to every other computer on the hub eating up bandwidth and slowing down traffic. Hubs are also typically slower...ie 10MBs.

A switch (which looks like a hub) knows via MAC addresses (the physical address of the network card) where to send the data. It does not duplicate data to each computer. Therefor it doesn't hog the line, plus they are faster--about 100MBs+.

Another nice thing about the switch is that since it keeps track of MAC addresses, you can have 3 computers on the same switch using it and have all three at 100MBs. If you had three computers on a hub at the same time, it would drop the 10MBs to 3.33MBs-plus they hog the line and slow everything down.

Find all the little boxes at your rig and look on the back. If they say "hub" replace them with switches. That is probably the best thing to do. Switches are cheap anymore. Most places don't even sell hubs--they are seriously outdated.

However, switches can't force data faster then your internet provider. If spyware and other junk is slowing you down, you need to clean up the computers. That is a software thing and that requires admin privileges.

 

[drawls31]

Thanks so much for the info .
on changing from hubs to switches is this pretty much plug n play.
hopefully i can obtain more admin. privelages because i know we are infested with spyware and adware all kinds of crap.
i use adaware, spybot seek and destroy ,and spysweeper.and i don't have any problems.but the(company) uses outdated symnatec crap and that's it.
the IT guys don't want to hear anything from us because they are smarter than us.

 

[Rick]

Upgrading your switches and hubs will have zero effect if your problem is spyware/virus related. Hardware upgrades will not be useful at all.

You need to talk to the 'administrator' and explain your situation. See if this person (or people) can help. I know you say they don't want to talk to you, but if you bug them enough, you should get a response.

can anybody please tell me how i can make my companies LAN work better?

What isn't not working well enough for you? Are transferring files from one computer to another on your LAN taking longer than expected? Is your Internet slow? Are your computers slow? Are you getting disconnected? Are you getting network error messages? If you can explain more about what you'd like to fix, we may be able to offer better solutions.

I'm also under the assumption you're using computers with Windows 2000 or XP. But if they have 98, Me or something else on them, let us know.

i use adaware, spybot seek and destroy ,and spysweeper.and i don't have any problems.but the(company) uses outdated symnatec crap and that's it.

So, you have ad-aware, spybot and spysweeper - 3 very good programs for spyware. It doesn't seem likely that spyware could be ruining your LAN.

Symantec products have gotten crummy over the years - its true. But even an old Symantec virus scanner will be pretty effective as long as the virus definitions are up to date. Companies often have corporate licenses that keep the definitions up to date. If your virus defs are out of date, you should tell you IT guy. Any IT guy worth his time will want to take care of this. And actually, even out of date, virus scanners do reasonably well to protect you.

 

[drawls31]

Rick I have adaware,spybot and spysweeper on my own machine.
Our company computers don't have anything but norton junk.
we are running xp pro.and the problems we are having is:Slow internet and computers.I can't even defrag the computer in my office.It's supposed to be scheduled but it never takes place.Being i'm the electrician out here I got nominated to resolve this problem.I am a novice but the situation is giving me a hard earned education in all things (computer like).I do appreciate all the valuable information I have received in this forum.If i can supply any additional info so you can better help me .please let me know.I think a lot of our problems result from improper maintenance.
But I am trying to stay on top of this.Just to let you know we don't just use the internet to play on sometimes it's the only means of communication for some of these guys :e-mailing family,sending pics to and from family,handling banking buisness etc.thanks again.