Bypass a server with a modem-router-switch connection

[therifulio]

Hi all!

I'm a greenhorn admin of a 40-user dorm-network what consist of the following.
MODEM-SERVER-SWITCH-USERS

The network is getting slower, and I want to find out why. My first assumption was there is some config-problem with the server, so I want to bypass it to see if the network will be faster.

I have an Dlink DI 524 router. How can I use it to bypass the working server and connect to it.
So I want to get:
MODEM-SERVER-SWITCH-USERS
-ROUTER-SWITCH-ONLY_MY_TESTCOMPUTER

How do I have to configure my router? (static ip or...)

Best regards
therifulio

 

[gbb0330]

what is this server that you speak of, what does it do?

for testing purposes you can do this

modem -> router -> test PC
or even modem -> test PC

your router config will depend on the modem config, i can't say based on the info you have provided

 

[therifulio]

Thank you for your answer, and thank you for pointed out the inaccuracy of my question.
(Sorry for being late: I just had returned from a trip.)

The server provide internal IPs via DHCP for all hosts on the network.

Since my post I have found the solution:

I set up a router right after ISP's modem with DHCP and with LAN IP 192.168.99.1. I connected it directly to the switch. When I want bypass the server with DHCP to find out if it's the bottleneck of the network I just set my computer to static IP for instance 192.168.99.5, so I connect to my router. With static IP I assume I can avoid the collision of DHCP servers (or something like that).

ISP --- SERVER with DHCP ----------- SWITCH --- MYCOMPUTER
--- ROUTER without DHCP ------ SWITCH --- MYCOMPUTER (with fixed IP)