vista network throughput abysmal on corporate LAN

[fraz]

I have vista business x86 on a laptop, and when I do anything while
logged into my business network (Cisco routers and switches), the
network performance is amazingly poor (programs like Outlook time out,
internet downloads run at around 4 kb/sec, file copy from shared
drives is OK speed but not great). Whenever I use a network set up
behind a linksys or dlink consumer grade router, I get normal
throughput.

I am not sure where to start looking. My XP Pro machines have no
issue. In Vista I see a few security event logs listing "windows
filtering platform" access denied errors (restricting ports with
svchost), but they don't seem to correspond timewise to the occurences
of Outlook timeouts and the like.

I have disabled IPv6 on my network connections just to be safe, but
still get the problem. Any ideas or pointers to similar problems would
be appreciated.

 

[Spanky deMonkey]

I had copy issues with Vista and other issues using Windows Explorer. When
I disabled the antivirus, the copying went faster. I finally got fed up
with Vista and reinstalled XP Pro. Much more stable.

 

[Andrew McLaren]

I have vista business x86 on a laptop, and when I do anything while
logged into my business network (Cisco routers and switches), the
network performance is amazingly poor (programs like Outlook time out,
I am not sure where to start looking. My XP Pro machines have no

Hi Fraz,

Analysing performance issues like this are fairly routine for network
support guys. If you have a corporate IT department, you might wan to get
them involved. Especially since many of the factors could involve network
infrastructure that is under their control (topology knowledge, router
settings, IOS logons, etc)

But, the basic technique is to use a network sniffer, to capture the traffic
to and from your machine while you perform some poorly performing operation,
eg copy a file from a file server. Then you look at the resulting trace,
focusing in the time interval between frames for each of the several
concurrent conversaations. If the time gaps seem to be in responses from
the network, then the problem is "out there". If the reponse time delays are
coming from the Vista computer, you can work backwards to see why Vista is
taking so long to respond (eg is the problem at the SMB layer? IP layer?
etc).

You're undoubtedly seeing a genuine problem; but so far, I haven't heard of
poor LAN performance as a major issue in Vista, as such. You'd expect a
massive outcry across the board, if this was a general problem for users.

To capture a trace, you can use Microsoft's Network Monitor. This is a free
download and is Vista-compatible:
Microsoft Network Monitor 3.1
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...9D-F4D8-4213-8D17-2F6DDE7D7AAC&displaylang=en

Ethereal (www.ethereal.com) is a popular alternative. Ethereal has a few
nice analysis options, built-in.

As a general "health and fitness" measure, make sure you have the latest and
greatest network card drivers for your specific hardware; and look for
anything on the local machine which might affect performance eg firewall
settings, contention for TCP ports, background processes silently performing
outrageous network activity. A "netstat -ano" command at a command promt
will show you what network connections are active at any given moment.

Hope this helps; good luck with it!

 

[Kerry Brown]

I have vista business x86 on a laptop, and when I do anything while
logged into my business network (Cisco routers and switches), the
network performance is amazingly poor (programs like Outlook time out,
internet downloads run at around 4 kb/sec, file copy from shared
drives is OK speed but not great). Whenever I use a network set up
behind a linksys or dlink consumer grade router, I get normal
throughput.

I am not sure where to start looking. My XP Pro machines have no
issue. In Vista I see a few security event logs listing "windows
filtering platform" access denied errors (restricting ports with
svchost), but they don't seem to correspond timewise to the occurences
of Outlook timeouts and the like.

I have disabled IPv6 on my network connections just to be safe, but
still get the problem. Any ideas or pointers to similar problems would
be appreciated.

Did you try turning off receive window autotuning?

http://blogs.technet.com/windows_ne...indow-auto-tuning-and-vista-connectivity.aspx

 

[Ian Betts]

So it never occurred to you that it was the anti virus that cause the hold
up. XP is OK but Vista needs a little learning like any new bistro. Pity you
did not delete that VP.

 

[fraz]

Did you try turning off receive window autotuning?

That did it. The moment I disabled it everything returned to normal.
Funny that the IOS (12.3) on our router is supposedly compliant with
the relevant RFC.

Thanks much.