I'm using VirtualBox 5.0.16 on a Win10 x64 host to run an old, DOS-based 16 bit line-of-business application inside a WinXP guest. The app uses Lantastic 8.0 to mount network drives shared by two MS-DOS 6.22 cash registers.
The network is now a virtio connection (before I tried with either AMD PCNet PCI), configured as a Bridged connection to the PC physical Ethernet port. The Ethernet port goes to a 10 mbps network Hub, where the cash registers are cabled too. Any Fast Ethernet switch (100 mbps) seems unsupported. There are no DHCP server: the WinXP guest is hardcoded has 192.168.0.9 because the application expect it to be this way. The host PC has no IP address.
My problem: the network communication is extremely slow (we are talking about mere bytes per seconds). When the PC sends data to the cash registers, the COLLISION led on the hub blinks so fast it seems always-on. Some data goes through, but after a few minutes the connection is dropped due to timeout.
Out of frustration I rebuilt the VM with VMware Player and everything works as expected: the same network operation is ultrafast and the COLLISION led never blinks once .
Nevertheless, I've a strong preference for VirtualBox. Is there anything I can try to fix the problem? Would a VirtualBox log being useful even if there is no hypervisor crash?