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i have 2 computers connected to a netgear (wired) router
the problem is that when i try to transfer files between the 2 of them the connection is really really slow..
100 MB is taking an hour. the weird thing is that i can actualy download faster from the internet which is connected to the same router. anyone seen this before?
What OS are the computers running and what program/protocol are you use to transfer the files?
check your cables, sometimes a lag in the connections in caused by bad cabling. reseat all your cables and make sure that there isnt any rips in them etc...
Are your NIC cards 10/100? are they set to full, half or auto for duplexing? What about the interfaces on the router?
This sounds very much like a mismatched duplex setting. I'd start there. Be sure that all interfaces have the same duplex settings otherwise, life will be painful for you.
--TH13
win2k both
where do i set duplex settings..
Control Panel > Network Connections > NIC > Properties
Click Configure on the connection properties window. Click the advanced tab. Select Duplexing. Look at the setting.
On your router, check the networking section.
--Th13
It seems that both NIC's have the option of being set to full-duplex/100, therefore I forced them both to that setting.
The router, although it doesn't have any options in the firmware, according to a manufacturer (netger) is also capable of doing fd100.
The speed didn't increase one bit and now the WAN is ocasionally timing out. WTF? Should I set it to half-d 100.
Also, what is the proper procedure for making changes this way? (should I shut down the systems first &/or reboot the router)
by the way, cables are fine
...try a different router.
edit -- a Netgear router w/o a firmware update option? Must be pretty old (or pretty new). I've got an old Netgear 814-b wireless that gave me fits until I updated the firmware. Might double-check that firmware update.
hey
Check that you aren't using one straight-through cable and one crossover cable.
I had exactly the same thing a year or so ago. Try replacing your cables with a new pair.
Cheers
Sean
If you are getting duplex mismatches you should be able to : (don't have Win2k box to test but in this case i think the flags are the same)
start -> run -> cmd
---> netstat -se
The 's' is for protocol statistics and the 'e' throws in ethernet. Look for Discards/Errors. Also note that you can add an integer to the end of it to have it run at an interval of that integer in seconds. This would be a useful thing to try while you are transferring to get an idea of whether or not you are receiving errors and at what layer...
Out of curiosity what protocol are you using for the transfer ?
I must agree. I think it sounds like a layer 1 or layer 2 problem. Swap out the cables on both PCs and see if the performance improves on the transfer.
Most of the time if the duplex setting and tranfer rates are set to auto they will negotiate the most optimal settings. Is there a delay when you ping between that machines? I mean outside of the normal LAN delay?
How many protocols do you have bound to the card? In most cases it should just be TCP/IP, but I have seen problems where people had Appletalk, IPX/SPX, TCP/IP and every thing else under the sun. Additional traffic from these protocols may cause delay.
Let me know the above info and ill see what else I can think of.
Thanx for your replies BUT,
The cables are OK. I bought "better" cables. It said something like ("Fast - Cat5" 500)
I am doing this by mouting a shared folder (god... i hate to call them folders, they ARE directories) and doing drag&drop in GUI. Again both are win2k. The netgear router is fairly new
NetgearRP614v2
THE FIRMWARE IS UPGRADED TO THE LATEST VERSION!!! What I meant was that there's no half-duplex / full-duplex setting in the options of the router.
However I can force NIC's on both systems to anything I want.
Will I get better preformance if I do half-duplex 100MB? or even 10MB
I get better WAN download speeds and the WAN port is only 10MB!!!
phishphreak... what is the proper procedure to set & reset these settings .. should I shut down the whole network or can I just change settings on the fly and it will work?
ok...
inbuilt firewall blocking one of the M$ networking ports between IPs?
or...
is there a "client separation"=on setting on the router that's causing problems?
Sean
can't remember and can't be bothered to look this time of night, but is there a QOS service installed on 2K, like the default for XP?
if there is, try deinstalling that on both clients
Sean
In application 100Fdx is going to be the fastest you can get if it works. Did you look at any of the things i mentioned earlier?
You should be able to make the changes on the fly and not need to reboot anything. Newer routers are usually auto-sensing when it comes to the line speed and it may not be there in the GUI as a setting. If you really think that you need to change it on the router you may be able to make changes via commandline/telnet.
Alos, how did the output look from the netstat -se command? lots of errors?
Also...
I dont remember if it was mentioned but you can take a crossover cable and directly connect the 2 PCs together and transfer the files.
Obviously this is not the long term solution but it will rule out if it is a problem with the router or not.
Directly connect the 2 PCs with the crossover cable, try to transfer the files and see if there is any difference. If the problem goes away it may be your router, if the problem persists then it is most likely a PC to PC issue.
Let me know what happens :-)
The full duplex just means its using one pair for transmit and one pair for receive so in theory no collisions and better performance. Hooking the two pc's together with a cross-over will force the connection to be half duplex, which will hurt performance since they will have to share the same pair for transmit/receive.
In my experience, using netbios to transfer files has always been hideously inefficient. Perhaps you could setup IIS on one of the two servers and enable FTP for a bit (make sure you setup directory security so that its only available on the local LAN from the other system). In the past, this is usually what I'd do to transfer a large amount of files since it was a little more effecient at sending the data. You could also accomplish the same thing with netcat or if you were worried about encrypting the sessions, could perhaps setup SSH or cryptcat...
Just a thought, but IMHO, your performance issues lay more with the protocol than anything else...
and where would i get IIS dear sir?
to quote "road closed" ... another win boxes down the toilet
install: debian
W2K or xp pro have IIS as an option to install...(actually with 2000 I think it installs by default and you have to uninstall it)
When I have a problem with nics.....I update the drivers first(uninstall, reinstall,updated drivers) next replace cables, next replace nic, then replace switch\hub\router.
Switch out the router.....see if it still happens.....then the nics....
Maybe you have a bad nic on one of the machines...
just some things to try.
MLF
borrow a router from work for the night or ask if a friend can bring over theres...
i dont know very much about networking but i remember our old belkin router got really stupid before it let out a puff of smoke
Yeah...I had a bad switch.....
Strange things started happening..........database errors, outlook sync problems etc.....finally figured out it was a group of users...all connected to the same switch....replaced it...all is good
Sometimes its that simple ;)
MLF
IF it was just a P2P txfer and only a file txfer on your network.. what is there to say that one (the source PC is my suspicion..but would not be exclusive) has a HDD surface problem or a OS setting, as sdewis commented about QOS,
Is it possable to place a third pc on the network and test filetransfers to the other 2?
this will help isolate the source
On both W2K boxes, go into notepad, cut and paste the following Regedit 4 info below, save it as a file called Speedup.reg, double click the file and answer "Yes" when asked if you want to add this to your registry. Reboot both computers and try a test transfer (make it a test transfer no greater than 10MB). Did that work?
[Edit: The resulting file should contain two lines "HKEY" and "GlobalM...", ensure the HKEY line does NOT split as it has below]
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters]
"GlobalMaxTcpWindowSize"=dword:00007fff
I’m sorry for bringing up this thread again but I had to return a monitor and had no way to test the connectivity. I did “netstat –se” and got no errors. I merged the “window size” reg. fix and nothing happened. I set the Quality control service on “disabled” … no change. I forced both NIC’s to 100 FD nothing. WTF is going on this is driving me crazy. Is there any way to analyze the traffic?
1. Remember, It’s coping from shared folder to another shared folder.
2. I think that key is somewhere in the fact that the Internet traffic is very, very fast (as it should be) but among the systems themselves it’s noon existent.
3. The TTL between the systems is 128 … is that good /bad?
4. Could it be that there’s such a thing as slow standard cable … you know like 100 FD/HD, 10 FD /HD?
I can't imagine your internet traffic being so fast that it actually slows down your internal network to a halt.
The TTL is the number of hops a packet can pass before it being dropped to avoid rogue packets passing through a network till the end of time. I can't imagine it posing a problem.
You do have different types of cables, but you mentioned before you use Cat 5. which is good enough. I can't imagine you picked up any older cables in a store recently ;) So I reckon the cables are good if you've tried replacing them.
I'd go about checking things like:
- try another router see if the problem persists
- try a switch in stead of a router
- try different NIC's
- do the pc's have more than 1 nic? If so, disable 1 of them
Just some things you may try....
GL.
- i never said that wan speed affects the internal lan (that's absurd) but that it's weird that wan is fine (actually faster) lan
- i don't have another router
- i don't have another NIC
- if i use switch i will still need a DHCP server
- no more nics
- i know what ttl is i just think that 128 is a bit slow for 2 systems a hop away from each other
you know what's really weird that at some point it was going fine then it slowed again and i cannot recreate those conditions since i don't know what they are
I agree that it's weird that your LAN speed is slower than your WAN speed. You do however say that you think that that's the key, so I reckoned you thought that your high WAN speed was the reason for a slow LAN speed, which as you say is absurd. I just wanted to point this out without putting you off all together.
Using a switch, can't you set IP addresses manually?
Or maybe even put a switch in between... set up the switch and connect both pc's and the router as well. See if the traffice goes any faster.
Just some tips to narrow down where the problem is.
unhappy,
Are you running any antivirus on these machines?
Could be that your antivirus is scanning each file before transfer and after creation on the other machine.
During a slooooow transfer, on both computers I would ctrl-alt-del to access the task manager, sort on the CPU column so the process taking the most cpu time is listed first.
With this list showing, who are the top 4 programs in cpu usage?
If it's antivirus, Bingo!
Edit:Copying from a local shared folder to shared folder isn't exactly speedy. Loads of Netbios redirection/mapping overhead.Quote:
1. Remember, It’s coping from shared folder to another shared folder.
I'm assuming that you are copying from local mapped drive/share, say R: which you've mapped to local C: and copying to local N: which is mapped to a distant C: on the other computer.
Could you explain your mapping and sharing scheme a bit better?