Decreasing network latency with both NetBIOS & NetBIOS over TCPIP

If you are experiencing poor response time for NetBIOS based networking under a system with both ordinary NetBIOS & NetBIOS over TCPIP, then you may be falling victim to some poorly optimized default values.

Check your IBMLAN.INI file -- at the top, be sure that the NET1 line points to netbeui$ and NET2 points to tcpbeui$. If not, change NET1 to NET2, and vice versa. (Also, you may want to reorder the lines so the new NET1 statement comes first. I haven't verified that this makes any difference, however...)

Check your PROTOCOL.INI file -- under the [netbeui_nif] section, make sure that the following keys have these values: NETBIOSTIMEOUT = 500 NETBIOSRETRIES = 2

These steps shortened my network initialization times by 75%, and very noticeably decreased the network response latency. It seems that when TCPBEUI is on NET1, the wide area NetBIOS is searched first - introducing at least a second of unnecessary delay into the process.

Submitted by Don Meyer, contact at dlmeyer@uiuc.edu