Hub vs Switch problem

I have been trying to run 2 of my Protocol Analyzers (Observer and NetMon) and was unable to see Lan traffic, except Broadcasts and packets only to the PC the analyzer was on.

This left me with 2 answers to this problem. Either I was on a switch (which I wasn't - I had the systems I was working on connect to a Linksys Hub), or the NIC card didn't have Promiscuous Mode ( or it wasn't on). After much switching of cards and checking with intel - they promptly told me that all their cards had Promiscuous Mode and were always on (which was why I couldn't see it in the properties page). This was driving me crazy.

I had another linksys Hub (one was an Etherfast workgroup hub and the other was an Everywhere Hub that I just bought). Same result. They were acting like switches. I then got an old 10BaseT Hub I used to use from my garage (about 5 years old) and low and behold - it works fine.

What is going on here? The main difference between a hub and a switch is that on a hub all traffic is seen by all ports and on a switch packets will only be seen by the port it is destined for (unless it is a higher end switch with Port Spanning).

Anybody know?

Thanks,

Tom.

I just checked this out with Network Instruments and they confirmed what I figured.

Many of the new Hubs are really switches! The 2 hubs I have from Linksys are really switches. Linksys will deny this say they are not. But they are creating a tunnel from one port to another - a switch. It won't get to the computer on a port if a packet is not destined for it - a switch. Has nothing to do with the NIC card but the port itself.

This is very irritating as it seems impossible to know when you are buying a hub or not. In my case, I bought a hub specifically for my analyzer and now I can't return it, as I have already gotten rid of the box and related documents.

Apparently, netgears hubs are hubs but not linksys hubs (don't know about dlink).

It seems like linksys is selling hubs as switches [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] Thats very odd indeed!

I have never come across a similar problem. I've used mostly Dlink, Netgear and compex hubs.

Thats for letting us know about it!

Actually, it is the other way around. They are selling switches as hubs.

This is very strange as I don't understand what there motivation is. I have used their stuff for a while and have been quite happy about it. I did leave them a post about it and waiting for a reply. I'll post it when/if I get it.