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[Armethius]

I recently hooked up a D-Link DIR-655 as my network router. I am testing the gigabit trasnfer speed using two PCs. The first one is brand new, I just built it. It has an i7-920, 6GB of RAM, and a 7200RPM HDD. It is running Windows 7. The second one is a bit older; P4 3.2Ghz, 2GB RAM, and a 5400RPM HDD. It is running Windows XP. I installed an Intel Pro1000/GT NIC in both machines. I am testing my network speeds by transferring large video files across the network. The maximum speed I have seen is a mere 16.5MBps. I also used iPerf to test the speed and the results were the same (133Mbps = 16.6 MBps). I am using Cat5e cabling. I was hoping to achieve atleast 30MBps with this gigabit network. What could be the problem here? Could the 5400RPM HDD be bottlenecking the speed?

Any help appreciated. Let me know if you need any more information about my machines/network devices.

Thanks.

[EddieZ]

Can you check how the NICs are connected? Perhaps they do not connect at Gigabit.
Also your second PC could not be able to handle the load.

[Armethius]

Under both of the NICs' adapter status it says they are connected at 1.0Gbps.

[Armethius]

I just enabled jumbo frames to 9k and that improved my transfer speed a bit. I am able to get 21MB/s now. Any ideas on how to improve this speed even more?

[EddieZ]

If you have PCI based NIC: The max transfer rate of the PCI bus is 133 MB/s, which is shared across other components. Could be a factor on the older PC's.

Could also be the wiring (home made?), the 5400 rp HDD (how fast is that one?)....

[Armethius]

ill try to test the wiring by moving my computers to my network closet and bypass the in-wall wiring by connect straight to the router.

I don't think its the PCI bus because i have no other PCI components installed on the old computer.

I suppose it could be the old drive, however its not too old. You would tihnk that a 5400RPM drive could read at more than 20MB/s.

[Ozzed5]

I agree with Armethius, the hard drive may have a part in the issue.

[Armethius]

Upon further inspection the hard drive is actually 7200RPM, but it is an older hard drive that is at capacity and pretty fragmented so it could still be the problem.

I tested the cables and they do not seem to be the problem.

For some reason I have a suspicion that it is a result of a particular setting of the router (I.e. I had to go through 2 wireless NICs because I couldn't connect with wireless N before I found out that I had to enable WMM, something which was not well documented which should have been.)

Once I get all the necessary files off of the second machine, I am converting it to a home file server and will be using brand new WD green 1.5TB drives. Maybe these will increase speeds, but I think it is more likely something to do with settings of the router or NICs.

[Ozzed5]

I am jealous, I want those 1.5 TB drives.

[EddieZ]

Fragemented files do influence your speed.

The PCI bus also includes other periphirals such as video (although on a bus with another name)

[Armethius]

The older computer has an integrated video card and the brand new computer has a Radeon 4670 and that's it for PCI add-ons (along with the Intel NIC). I doubt this is the bottleneck.

[EddieZ]

The older PC can still be the culprit, integrated video still uses PCI bandwidth...

Have you tried different settings on your NIC's?

[Armethius]

All I've really tried was Jumno Frames (9k) and that increased performance a tad. What else should I try?

[Armethius]

With the computer rebuilt with new drives and new OS I am getting an average of 26MBps which I am pretty happy with. The funny thing is the now I get faster transfer speeds without Jumbo Frames.

[EddieZ]

Jumbo frames are a bit of a hoax, IMHO