Slow Gigabit network

[stevenfitzy]

Hi,
I have two Belkin Gigabit NICs and a Belkin gigabit switch, I found
that when I try to transfer 4-6GB files between them, I get an absolute
maximum of 15% of the 1gb bandwidth (150Mbps).

I'm using high quality CAT6 cables, running alone on the switch, I've
used a different Netgear gigabit switch, I've disabled the firewalls
and virus guards, stopped any unnecessary programs from running, I've
set both PCs up to have more resources for file sharing, I've run a
network tweak tool to adjust the registry for 10Mbps or higher, I've
tried pushing from one and pulling from the other, and still no
difference.

I've 'tweaked' both the NICs drivers settings (duplex, frame size etc.
to max) so that they're running as fast as they can, which has improved
the overall reliability (I can actually transfer the files now without
it saying the network is no longer available after threee minutes), but
it's still maxing out at 150Mbps.

One PC is running XP Home and has an AMD 3000 with 1GB RAM, the other
is a 1Ghz AMD with 768MB RAM on XP Media Centre. I've heard that the
computer can cause the network to slow, could this be the case here or
am I clutching at strawers?

If I try to transfer from either gigabit machine to any 100MB machine,
it runs at 100Mbps, no trouble at all.

Any advise on this (reg tweaks etc.) would be greatfully received.

 

[Guest]

Nice setup with the Cat6 cabling and gigabyte technology. Your transfer, it's
a good download speed running at 150 Mbps or the speed translation most like
to refer to would translate at 18750 KB/s or 18.750 MB/s. If my calculations
correct? I would think your pushing that down your pipeline in a homenetwork
enviro at a good pace.

You did mention about limitations for networking with computer systems that
are at different capabilities. Partially true you can only receive the data
as fast as the other can send it down the pipe and or the other machine can
receive it.

As for tweaks to the regisrty or the nic cards I know of none.

I can offer a possible solution. It's dependant on if your transferring
these large files on a constant basis and you do alot of file transfers on
your homenetwork.
The soultion is to add a 3rd pc and run Linux as a file server http or ftp
on the machine and let it do the brunt of the pushing. You may be able to
push way more of the bandwidth out of your setup. Since Linux handles that
exceptionally well.

Just to give you an example. I had run linux in a home enviro as a http
server using apache. With Cat 5 cabling dlink 10/100 ethernet cards and a
dlink hub one win2k machine. When downloading from the linux server the
download would start off at 4 MB/s and peaked close to 10 MB/s or 80% of the
entire bandwidth. I didnt have any huge files that were 4 gig to see what the
absolute peak would have been. Most of the files were i transferred were less
then 500 MB.

Just a possible solution. Might not be a quick fix. Thou the option is there
if you are constantly tranferring files and would like to take the horse
power and let linux do it stuff as a dedicated server.

Hopefully someone will know how to tweak your XP to utilize full bandwidth.

Cheers!

 

[Guest]

Oh just a thought come to mind im not familiar with the CAT 6 cable is it
capable of doing Gigabyte speed?

I have read that the major diffenerence between Cat 5 and Cat 6 was an
increase from 100 Mhz to 250 Mhz in bandwidth.

 

[Guest]

I think the problem is in your 1ghz machine. It is too slow. The processor
and a chipset is a bottleneck or even a hard drive. I have like 35
megabytes/s on two athlon 64 3000+ machines and onboard nforce4 nic in
chipset. I think that speed is a good for low end hard drives.
But something poked my eye in your post. U r saying that in the middle of
copying network becomes unavailable? That sounds like faulty cabling problem.
How long are thouse cables? Are they near some power line or some other EM
device. Maybe u got EM interference problem?

 

[stevenfitzy]

I think the problem is in your 1ghz machine. It is too slow. The processor
and a chipset is a bottleneck or even a hard drive. I have like 35
megabytes/s on two athlon 64 3000+ machines and onboard nforce4 nic in
chipset. I think that speed is a good for low end hard drives.
But something poked my eye in your post. U r saying that in the middle of
copying network becomes unavailable? That sounds like faulty cabling problem.
How long are thouse cables? Are they near some power line or some other EM
device. Maybe u got EM interference problem?

Thanks for the posts so far.

I thought when talking about network speed, that we should all be
speaking about Megabits per second, rather than bytes, or have I been
out of the game too long...

I think you may be right about the 1ghz machine, if I 'pull' the file
from the 3ghz to the 1ghz PC, it bounces between 0.5% and 5% until is
says "Network no longer available", but if I "Push" the file, I get an
almost rock solid 14% of the 1Gbps; the 3ghz processor runs at 50-60%
of maximum, while the 1Ghz seems to be doing a little less work between
30-40% with no network errors.

Just for completeness, I get a "jumpy" 10% if I push from the 1ghz to
the 3ghz.