On Sun, 12 Jun 2011 02:33:14 -0400, Paul <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Geoff wrote:
>> On Sat, 11 Jun 2011 18:18:22 -0500, VanguardLH <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>
>>> Did you actually install a network card? If so, you should be able to
>>> see a sticker with an actual model number instead of getting just some
>>> specs detected within Windows. If not, is it an onboard NIC (i.e., a
>>> backpanel RJ-45 connector from a controller on the motherboard)? In
>>> that case, knowing the motherboard maker and model could help in
>>> identifying just what specs its NIC controller can support.
>>
>> Taking a NIC out I see a chip with Pulse H5007 and 1003-c on it. The
>> serial number on the NIC is 2010H040213 and the same model description
>> as on the box, NIC1000Rv2.
>>
>> Two LEDs ACT and Link.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Geoff
>>
>
>The part with the Pulse brand name on it, is the transformers chip.
>Ethernet is AC coupled, and a transformer is used for galvanic
>isolation. There is no DC path between computers, due to
>transformers being on either end. "Pulse" is a popular brand
>name for those.
>
>A GbE NIC transformer package, has twice as many coils inside it,
>as the one shown in this diagram. Two of the coils are chokes,
>while the other two function as transformers. The turns ratio
>on the transformer, can be used to boost the voltage level if
>necessary.
>
>http://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/cata...s8900a-sch.gif
>
>*******
>
>I tried your file sharing test here, just for fun.
>
>I installed the Cenatek RAMDisk program on two computers. Each
>computer has a GbE NIC on it. I connected them to my Netgear
>gigabit switch (which very likely uses the same silicon chip
>as yours does, because everyone likes to use the cheapest chip
>possible). I probably paid twice as much as you did for your
>TPLink, and all I got was a nice plastic casing :-)
>
>With a 1GB sized RAM disk running on each computer, I could store
>the source file on one end, and using file sharing, copy the
>file into a RAMDisk at the other end. The RAMDisk removes the
>disk as a limiting factor in terms of performance.
>
>When I ran the transfer test, I got an average of 55MB/sec. The
>CPU on the laptop was flat out at 100%, while I think my desktop
>wasn't quite as heavily loaded. It might have gone faster, if
>the CPU clock rate was higher.
>
> Paul


Paul

I have just tried the RAMDisk software and now removed it !

It seemed to install OK with XP Pro but with Windows could not get it
working until I went right down to 50MB. Then it was like wading
through treacle to do anything on the PC...

Back to normal now!

Cheers

Geoff

Paul wrote:

> When I ran the transfer test, I got an average of 55MB/sec. The
> CPU on the laptop was flat out at 100%, while I think my desktop
> wasn't quite as heavily loaded. It might have gone faster, if
> the CPU clock rate was higher.

Which reminds me that one of the properties of the NIC device in Device
Manager is whether to optimize it for throughput or CPU usage. As I
recall when changing any properties for the NIC, you have to reboot for
them to be effected. When I changed the optimize property, my NIC
stopped working and I had to reboot. From what little I found online,
you set "optimize for throughput" if you mostly download and "optimize
for CPU" if you are running a server app on your host. Yet I also see
comments that it won't much affect network performance for home users
and only makes some difference on servers under heavy loads. With heavy
loads, you don't want the NIC to take a backseat to the CPU.

http://www.pcwintech.com/increase-network-performance

The article notes the "Optimize For" might be just an nVidia NIC
property. That's what I have and it defaulted to CPU for optimize. If
the optimize property is there for your NIC, you could try testing with
it set to Throughput instead of CPU.

Tweak #3 reminds me of something different in Windows Vista/7 regarding
TCP properties but damn if I can remember it now. I think it was called
something like "TCP Receive Window Auto-Tuning Level".

http://ttcshelbyville.wordpress.com/...twork-windows/
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935400
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947239

VanguardLH wrote:
> Paul wrote:
>
>> When I ran the transfer test, I got an average of 55MB/sec. The
>> CPU on the laptop was flat out at 100%, while I think my desktop
>> wasn't quite as heavily loaded. It might have gone faster, if
>> the CPU clock rate was higher.
>
> Which reminds me that one of the properties of the NIC device in Device
> Manager is whether to optimize it for throughput or CPU usage. As I
> recall when changing any properties for the NIC, you have to reboot for
> them to be effected. When I changed the optimize property, my NIC
> stopped working and I had to reboot. From what little I found online,
> you set "optimize for throughput" if you mostly download and "optimize
> for CPU" if you are running a server app on your host. Yet I also see
> comments that it won't much affect network performance for home users
> and only makes some difference on servers under heavy loads. With heavy
> loads, you don't want the NIC to take a backseat to the CPU.
>
> http://www.pcwintech.com/increase-network-performance
>
> The article notes the "Optimize For" might be just an nVidia NIC
> property. That's what I have and it defaulted to CPU for optimize. If
> the optimize property is there for your NIC, you could try testing with
> it set to Throughput instead of CPU.
>
> Tweak #3 reminds me of something different in Windows Vista/7 regarding
> TCP properties but damn if I can remember it now. I think it was called
> something like "TCP Receive Window Auto-Tuning Level".
>
> http://ttcshelbyville.wordpress.com/...twork-windows/
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935400
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947239

On some older OS, I tried tuning the receive window. But you wouldn't
think with a short cable, there'd be enough packets in flight, for
that to be necessary.

On the laptop, I'm not really sure what was using all the CPU. I had
some performance tools open, to record the bandwidth, and I hope
they weren't responsible.

In any case, my results with Win 7 to WinXP is better than when I
tried this a few years back with Win2K (which only managed 40MB/sec).

Paul

Geoff wrote:

>
>
> Paul
>
> I have just tried the RAMDisk software and now removed it !
>
> It seemed to install OK with XP Pro but with Windows could not get it
> working until I went right down to 50MB. Then it was like wading
> through treacle to do anything on the PC...
>
> Back to normal now!
>
> Cheers
>
> Geoff

Yeah, I noticed a bit of strangeness here as well.

I set it up on Windows 7, on the laptop with 3GB of RAM.
I allocated 1GB for the RAMDisk. There was some paging,
while that was being set up (you could see the hard drive light
come on for 30 seconds or so). The RAMDisk worked fine though,
and I could do some testing with it.

Later, I decided it would be fun to set the RAMDisk to
2GB instead of 1GB. I shut the current RAMdisk down,
and it doesn't seem like it released the memory. Then
it paged for a long long time, before declaring it
couldn't set up the RAMDisk. And after exiting the
RAMDisk setup program, without succeeding at getting
the RAMdisk going again, Task Manager said all the
system memory was still in use.

That's when the testing stopped, and I shutdown the
laptop.

Paul

On Sat, 11 Jun 2011 18:35:23 -0400, Paul <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>VanguardLH wrote:
>
>>
>> Have you used Device Manager to look at the properties for the NICs in
>> your intranet hosts? The switch should support autonegotiation but do
>> your NICs? Is the NIC optimized for CPU or throughput? Is it set to
>> autonegotiation or a particular speed? If already set for
>> autonegotiation, can you set it to use 1000 full duplex? Is it using
>> half- or full-duplex mode?
>
>I think this is a good direction to look.
>
>There are more properties in the NIC properties entry in Device Manager
>than just the speed. It could be some kind of flow control option which
>is incorrectly set.
>
>My NIC has:
>
> "Flow Control" (with a possible option of "Disabled")
> "Jumbo Packet" (currently 1514, for compatibility)
> "Receive Buffers" 256
> "Transmit Buffers" 256
>
>I also have 802.1p which is currently enabled, but could be turned off.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.1p
>
>Experimenting with some settings there might help.
>
>*******
>
>With regard to collecting information, you can use Wireshark on
>both computers, and collect traces on them at the same time.
>
>First, go to the Date and Time panel, and request NTP time synchonization.
>Use the same NTP server for both computers. The intention of doing that,
>is so the time stamps (displayed in hours:minute:seconds) match. Then,
>when you attempt a transfer between machines, you can compare the
>traces on the two machines, and see if a packet sent by one machine,
>is showing up at the other machine (within the time stamp uncertainty).
>
>I'm having trouble understanding how "duplicate ACKs" could be
>showing up, when we're talking about a network connection that
>only goes through a switch. That seems pretty weird.
>
>*******
>
>And just for fun, there is another way to analyse file copying,
>thanks to Mark Russinovich.
>
>"Inside Vista SP1 File Copy Improvements"
>
>http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussi...4/2826167.aspx
>
> Paul

Paul

I have just tried the various nic speed settings with xcopy / dos and
get the same situation, the best speeds are with setting 100Mbps/full
duplex on the nics - I then get 7MB/sec transfers.

Cheers

Geoff

On Sat, 11 Jun 2011 18:35:23 -0400, Paul <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

Paul,

I have just installed and used the Realtek Daignostic Utility - ran
all its tests and nothing wrong. It indicates a low speed for transmit
with autonegociation but makes no comment!

Geoff

Geoff wrote:
> On Sat, 11 Jun 2011 18:35:23 -0400, Paul <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> Paul,
>
> I have just installed and used the Realtek Daignostic Utility - ran
> all its tests and nothing wrong. It indicates a low speed for transmit
> with autonegociation but makes no comment!
>
> Geoff

You can use the Command Prompt (DOS Window) to do some testing.

If you run "ping" from one computer to the other, does a response
always come back ?

Say one computer is 192.168.0.2 and the other is 192.168.0.3. If
you are on the 192.168.0.2 computer, you'd try

ping -n 1000 192.168.0.3

to test whether packets come back or not. That would send a thousand
test packets, and note how many come back. To stop the test you
can press control-C in the command prompt window. If you don't use
the -n option, then only a small number of tests are made.

In this example, you can see one ping attempt failed with a
request timed out.

http://www.fa1nt.net/pavlov_connecti...s/image006.jpg

Paul

On Sun, 12 Jun 2011 16:02:32 -0400, Paul <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Geoff wrote:
>> On Sat, 11 Jun 2011 18:35:23 -0400, Paul <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>
>> Paul,
>>
>> I have just installed and used the Realtek Daignostic Utility - ran
>> all its tests and nothing wrong. It indicates a low speed for transmit
>> with autonegociation but makes no comment!
>>
>> Geoff
>
>You can use the Command Prompt (DOS Window) to do some testing.
>
>If you run "ping" from one computer to the other, does a response
>always come back ?
>
>Say one computer is 192.168.0.2 and the other is 192.168.0.3. If
>you are on the 192.168.0.2 computer, you'd try
>
> ping -n 1000 192.168.0.3
>
>to test whether packets come back or not. That would send a thousand
>test packets, and note how many come back. To stop the test you
>can press control-C in the command prompt window. If you don't use
>the -n option, then only a small number of tests are made.
>
>In this example, you can see one ping attempt failed with a
>request timed out.
>
>http://www.fa1nt.net/pavlov_connecti...s/image006.jpg
>
> Paul
>

Paul I tried the ping -n 1000 with both 100Mbps/full duplex and
autonegociation and got 0% loss for both...

I will speak to ADDON Tech Support tomorrow and who knows ....

I will let you know what they say.

Cheers

Geoff

On Mon, 13 Jun 2011 02:03:24 -0400, "Mike" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>
>"Geoff" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Hello
>>
>> I have connected the 1 Gigabit TP-Link switch and get odd results!
>>
>> I have a Windows 7 Home Premium and a Windows XP Pro PC connected to
>> the switch and the ADSL modem/router also connected to it.
>>
>> The Internet connections seems OK - download/upload speeds as normal
>> for both PCs.
>>
>> But! When I transfer a 1GB file from the Windows 7 PC to the XP Pro I
>> see a transfer speed of approx 200KB/sec.
>>
>> From the XP Pro to the Windows 7 I see approx 4MB/sec!
>>
>> Why the different speeds and why are both speeds less than before
>> without the switch?!
>>
>> Any thoughts?
>>
>> Geoff
>
>Can you borrow stuff and switch out? Possible culprits: NICs, cables,
>switch, Win7.
>
>If you haven't already, try this:
>
>http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...3-13f5a16b802d
>
>More answers here:
>http://www.google.com/search?q=slow+...-8&oe=utf-8&aq
>
>and here:
>http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...copy+windows+7
>

Mike

Thanks for the links - no luck so far!

I have emailed a full description of the case to ADDON's Tech Support
and wait for their thoughts!

Geoff

Geoff wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Jun 2011 02:03:24 -0400, "Mike" <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote:
>
>> "Geoff" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>>> Hello
>>>
>>> I have connected the 1 Gigabit TP-Link switch and get odd results!
>>>
>>> I have a Windows 7 Home Premium and a Windows XP Pro PC connected to
>>> the switch and the ADSL modem/router also connected to it.
>>>
>>> The Internet connections seems OK - download/upload speeds as normal
>>> for both PCs.
>>>
>>> But! When I transfer a 1GB file from the Windows 7 PC to the XP Pro I
>>> see a transfer speed of approx 200KB/sec.
>>>
>>> From the XP Pro to the Windows 7 I see approx 4MB/sec!
>>>
>>> Why the different speeds and why are both speeds less than before
>>> without the switch?!
>>>
>>> Any thoughts?
>>>
>>> Geoff
>> Can you borrow stuff and switch out? Possible culprits: NICs, cables,
>> switch, Win7.
>>
>> If you haven't already, try this:
>>
>> http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...3-13f5a16b802d
>>
>> More answers here:
>> http://www.google.com/search?q=slow+...-8&oe=utf-8&aq
>>
>> and here:
>> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...copy+windows+7
>>
>
> Mike
>
> Thanks for the links - no luck so far!
>
> I have emailed a full description of the case to ADDON's Tech Support
> and wait for their thoughts!
>
> Geoff