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[Mr Skrunts]

Just tried the Full Duplex setting, throughput dropped by 80*.  All though as TB mentions I only tried the main PC.  Tried it on half duplex, no real improvent.

Gone back to to Auto Neg.  Steady average of 9.96 mB/Sec

[TheBoy]

You haven't really described the network kit - is it a switch, or a hub?

Generally with ethernet, expect it to start to flatten at 40% utilisation (better kit will help), so on 100Mb hub, you're looking at 3.5Mbyte/sec

A switch will improve things, assuming its any good, though some layer 3 switches may hinder slightly as they do more processing.

The onboard NIC implementation will drastically affect things - there are good and bad.  Generally, the Intel or Broadcom chips are well thought of, but I seen some rubbish implementations.


Don't bother with gigabit nics unless they are onboard - the pci bus can't handle it.  Even with onboard, ensure that they don't hang off the PCI bus as mobo makers such as Asus do.  Very few consumer mobos implement a better PCI bus than 32bit 33mhz.  PCIe doesn't suffer this restriction - again dependant on how its been implemented.

Currently just a basic ADSL 2 Modem Router, cheapest in the shop at the time as it was an emergency, I believe its an Addon Brand.  5 port jobbie.


All the motherboards I am looking at for the next machine have Gigabit Ethernet (GE) on board, as does my current Gigabyte Board.  I also have a Gigabyte board plus a cheapie MSI board I bought yesterday that both have GE.

I would apprecite a recommendation for say maybe an 8 port Swith/Hub to plug all the above systems into.

Its not just about the mobo having an integrated 1Gbs NIC, its also about how its implemented!  I Gb NIC at full chat will flatten the PCI bus, so if it is on the PCI bus, you will have issues.  If it is directly connected to the MCH/Northbridge, thats a better option.

With switches, you get what you pay for - devices like Cisco Catalyst 2900, despite its age, will still outperform cheap no name cheapie switches.  But unlikely that consumers will need or warrant paying that sort of price.  Cisco's CatIOS takes some learning as well

[TheBoy]

Just tried the Full Duplex setting, throughput dropped by 80*.  All though as TB mentions I only tried the main PC.  Tried it on half duplex, no real improvent.

Gone back to to Auto Neg.  Steady average of 9.96 mB/Sec

Is that 10Mbit/s or 10Mbyte/s - if that later, thats excellent throughput for 100Mb (and a sure sign your network is very quiet )

[Mr Skrunts]

Not too fussed at getting the Gigabit at full speed, the 100mBit would be nice, as it would be 10 times faster in theory than it is now.

[TheBoy]

Not too fussed at getting the Gigabit at full speed, the 100mBit would be nice, as it would be 10 times faster in theory than it is now.

Answer my Q just above (reply 17)

[Mr Skrunts]

Just tried the Full Duplex setting, throughput dropped by 80*.  All though as TB mentions I only tried the main PC.  Tried it on half duplex, no real improvent.

Gone back to to Auto Neg.  Steady average of 9.96 mB/Sec

Is that 10Mbit/s or 10Mbyte/s - if that later, thats excellent throughput for 100Mb (and a sure sign your network is very quiet )

Just timed it.  30 second stop watch test resulted in 301 MB data moved.

[TheBoy]

Just tried the Full Duplex setting, throughput dropped by 80*.  All though as TB mentions I only tried the main PC.  Tried it on half duplex, no real improvent.

Gone back to to Auto Neg.  Steady average of 9.96 mB/Sec

Is that 10Mbit/s or 10Mbyte/s - if that later, thats excellent throughput for 100Mb (and a sure sign your network is very quiet )

Just timed it.  30 second stop watch test resulted in 301 MB data moved.

So 10MB (bytes)/s which is the absolute theretical maximum out of a 100Mb(bit) network.  As its a very quiet network, the fact you are running half duplex (i reckon you are, as i reckon yours is a hub) won't make any difference.

Gb networking may improve things, but be aware a poor implementation may make things worse - I can't stress that enough. Cheap consumer mobos with poor Gb implementations has no spare capacity on the pci bus, which means the disks then can't provide data, so the SMB messages on the network time out, retries happen, everything slows further.

Little reason in consumer environment to go to Gb - most consumer NAS boxes are still 100Mb.


I would do tests here (all my Gb systems here have decent implementations (and I have a couple of spare Proliant DL360s here that I need to build for work  )), but the amount of traffic on the network here would make the results inconclusive - plus other things would vary it, for example FTP is more efficient that SMB (protocol used on Windows networking).

[Mr Skrunts]

Am using DUmeter as a speed clock it also has a stop watch built on.  I dont know of any other simple and reliable utilites that I can test with.


As I say I am a complete and utter newbie when it comes to networking.

[TheBoy]

Am using DUmeter as a speed clock it also has a stop watch built on.  I dont know of any other simple and reliable utilites that I can test with.


As I say I am a complete and utter newbie when it comes to networking.

Copy a 500Mb file, and time it, forget utils like dumeter (which has its uses, but this is one to do manually)

[Mr Skrunts]

Am using DUmeter as a speed clock it also has a stop watch built on.  I dont know of any other simple and reliable utilites that I can test with.


As I say I am a complete and utter newbie when it comes to networking.

Copy a 500Mb file, and time it, forget utils like dumeter (which has its uses, but this is one to do manually)

Ok, will try that tomorrow, will mke up a 500mb zip filw and transfer it in both directions, will be an interesting test.  

[Taxi_Driver]

Ok,  I know the bare basics to hard ware and am OK at putting a box of bits together and calling it a computer.

I am working with an Abit 32 Bit XP2200+ and a Gidabyte 64Bit D930 based system both with onboard 100MBit Nic's plugged into a ADSL2 modem router.

I seem to be getting 6/10 Mbit transfer speed at best. but this seems to be the best speed I have ever achieved no mater what system combination I have been using.


I have a fair bit of equipment with some of it having 10/100/1000 capabilility.

I have in the past set the netwoks up individually working back from the modem, I havwe even bought the 10/100/1000 Nics and switch/routers  (Netgear I think)

Where am I going wrong and what is the maximum speed I could expaect to achieve.

TIA.  

Any questions/replys from Network Guru's then please keep it simple as you will probably be blinding me with science  

Just a real quick check - can you force the Nics on the mobos to 100mbit connection speed only? There used to be a problem with autonegotation of the connection speed 'twixt switches and network ports, so it might be worth forcing the network cards to 100Mbit and rechecking your connection speed.

HTH  

Autoneg is now ultra reliable (assuming both ends set to autoneg).

Setting one end to autoneg, and other forced will result in a duplex mismatch, and poor throughput.  Now I don't know the router in question, but I would bet a left gonad that its not a managed hub/switched, and thus cannot be forced

Leave on autoneg

Didnt somone else bet a gonad a while ago.....and lost the bet  

[jjleonard]

ah. That's what happens when you rely on old information! I have to remember that the last time I did any real PC troubleshooting was probably 4 years ago.

Sorry Skruntie!

[Marks DTM Calib]

I'd recommend 100MB Full Duplex first - there's no real point to setting it to Half Duplex. Good luck with the testing.  

Now that depends 100% on it being a switch - you cannot have a hub running at Full Duplex, only Half.  We haven't ascertained if its a hub or switch.

Thats not entirely true for modern hubs either......

[Mr Skrunts]

ah. That's what happens when you rely on old information! I have to remember that the last time I did any real PC troubleshooting was probably 4 years ago.

Sorry Skruntie!

No worries matey.  I I tranferred so much stuff in the last few day I was just trying to speed things up.

To help things out in the future I have just bought a USB Adapter.  I can just drop a new hard drive (Data) in it and plug it into any machine to Upload/download/transfer data from any machine/laptop to either a 3.5 or 2.5 ins hard drive before in stalling it into my server.

[Marks DTM Calib]

For those who dont know

Hubs: Multicast all ingress traffic on all egress ports (what comes into one port gets sent out on ALL other ports)

Switches: Learn Mac addresses and hence dont multicast as standard. They forward to the correct learn;t port.

Routers: As per switches but with additional functions such as layer 3 support (IP layer), IP address allocation etc etc