Slight Vista Issue

[crenn]

I installed a couple of gigabit switches and tested the speed to find I got about 18MB/s if I was lucky. After digging around, disabling sound gave me an extra 2-4MB/s and uninstalling Remote Differential Compression yielded speeds of (I enabled sound again) of 19-25MB/s.

Has anyone had this issue? Any way to fix it?

Note, it's a vista issue, copying files from the XP remote machine to my Vista machine... roughly 46MB/s.

[Luke122]

Try disabling IPv6 in your network config, and see if that helps. The less stuff running, the better.

[crenn]

Enabled or disabled makes little difference to the speed.

Disabled: 19-20MB/s
Enabled: 20-22MB/s

[AMD Killa]

Did you change any of the TCP settings? Vista's are normally self optimizing, but if you used a program to change them, it won't self optimise.

Are the switches self managed?

Try attempting to configure them through the network map, or network devices folder.

Could also be a driver issue. Try getting the latest drivers for your NIC.

[crenn]

NIC has latest drivers from Windows update. Gigabit switches are unmanaged. Disabling auto-tuning has no effect. I have something I'm going to try later and if it fixes it, I'll post the results.

[crenn]

After playing around with stuff suggested here (http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2558578&SiteID=17) and here (http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t36178.html). I'm upto 21-29MB/s

[AMD Killa]

Maybe something to do with QoS?

[crenn]

Disabled or enabled doesn't make a difference.

[AMD Killa]

This is turning out to be tricky.

I know that switches are slower than routers, but it shouldent make this much of a difference, unless you are dropping packets somewhere.

[crenn]

I know it's something with Vista, when XP handles getting the files from the system, it goes at 46MB/s. I might try a dedicated file copying program, I'm just using Windows Explorer, although I don't think that's an issue....

[AMD Killa]

Have you tried the copy command in the commmand prompt? Although, you would have to time it manually.

When I first got into networking, it was these little things that really annoyed me (and still do). It's just one small setting somewhere. How have you connected the switches? Are they connected together? If so, are they connected properly, using the XX ports correctly? I'm sure you know all this, but just making sure.

Like you say, it does sound like Vista is the problem, but even with the XP speed, it should be a lot faster if it is a fully gigabit network.

[crenn]

Providing I can get about 40MB/s, I'll be happy. I'll later upload some rough network diagrams which should explain my layout.

[AMD Killa]

ok, that should help me understand. But I cant see why you are only getting 46Mbps max on a gigabit network.

[crenn]

46MB/s, not 46Mbps. There is a difference ;)

Haven't done any more fiddling yet.

[AMD Killa]

Techincally 8 times the difference. Good old physics lessons :D (dont ask me why :D)

I forgot the capital!. I was tired :D. 46Mbps is even worse!! (Hello dial-up). Have you got any improvement yet?

[crenn]

I found that the file was fragmented, however.... I put it on another drive so it wasn't fragmented, and I got 20MB/s. Defragging the remote machine's address.

[AMD Killa]

Try looking at this: http://www.neoblog.co.uk/?p=13. I thought it might be to do with Vista's self optimisation, but wasnt sure how it affected the network. Try it, and let me know the result.

[crenn]

I found the problem....... the remote machine is getting 40-70% loading (it's a dual core machine) when gigabit is being used. I'm planning to format the machine and see what happens.

[OvRiDe]

You might try forcing the Network card to Gigabit, usually by default its set to Auto. We had some issues at work where there were alot of protocol errors, and forcing it to a setting vs the auto fixed a bunch of stuff. Also there is a neat little app that is called Teracopy (http://www.codesector.com/download.php) that is a replacement for the normal file copy dialog and mechanism. I am using it and I can tell a difference. The other nice thing is it gives you realtime feed back of your transfer speeds.

Hope this helps!

[AMD Killa]

Looks like a driver issue, rather than something in windows. Try deleting the network adapter in device manager, then installing the latest drivers from the manufacturer. If that doesnt work, resort to the generic drivers builtin to the OS.

[crenn]

I am using the generic drivers built into the OS. As for the speeds, if it wasn't in gigabit, it wouldn't be getting more than 12MB/s

[crenn]

Well, I can confirm it was the remote machine's fault for slow network speeds. My sister got a new computer and today it's on the wired network, tested speeds:

60MB/s (12GB file)
87MB/s (6GB file)
A little tweaking later...
116MB/s (102MB/s average - 8GB file)