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[DoubleChurn]

FYI, I did search through a bunch of topics, can't find my answer.

DIR-655 Firmware: 2.00NA (most recent) Hardware Version: B1

I am not getting Gigabit LAN wired. I am only averaging 25% of that, which means 256mbps or 32MBps. Please note the following:

- Router only connected to two computers (wired), wireless turned off
- Cable length does not exceed maximum specified length of 100 meters (328 feet). Neither does it exceed the usual maximum length of 100 feet. (both ends)
- Cable is CAT 5e (both ends) allowing Gigabit speeds
- NICs on both computer are able to run at Gigabit
- Both computers recognize the Gigabit connection speed
- Sustained Hard drive speeds are rated at 101.9MBps and 86.6MBps or 815.2mbps and 692.8mbps (therefore, connections should run at least 692.8mbps or 69% usage)
- Minimal programs were running in the background (in fact, almost nothing except for the OS itself)
- Windows 7 on both computers
- Later, I ran a streaming of a file and transferring files over the network, the speed still remained around 25% usage, which means there's isn't a cap of network usage per program. (is there usually a cap?)

Things I don't want to hear:
- Cat 5e doesn't support gigabit
- Check cable has 8 cables instead of 4 (it has
- CPU not good enough (it's plenty fast for copying files, quad and hex core)
- Not enough RAM (plenty of that too, I don't know how much role RAM plays in transferring files over the network)

Thanks in advance,
DC

[thecreator]

Hi DC,

What is the Brand and Model Number of the motherboard of the computer?

Are you running 32-Bit or 64-Bit version of Windows 7?

Who is the manufacturer of the Ethernet Port on the motherboard?

These questions are important.

[DoubleChurn]

Really? I never thought the bit version dictates what connection speed you get. Or the brand of a motherboard.

Server:
Windows 7 64-bit
MoBo: Gigabyte GA-MA78LM-S2H Rev. 00
Ethernet: Realtek RTL 8168D/8111D Family PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet

Workstation:
Windows 7 64-bit
MoBo: MSI 870-G45 (MS-7599) 2.0 Rev. 00
Ethernet: Atheros AR8131 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (NDIS 6.20)

Drivers are updated.

[thecreator]

Really? I never thought the bit version dictates what connection speed you get. Or the brand of a motherboard.

Server:
Windows 7 64-bit
MoBo: Gigabyte GA-MA78LM-S2H Rev. 00
Ethernet: Realtek RTL 8168D/8111D Family PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet

Workstation:
Windows 7 64-bit
MoBo: MSI 870-G45 (MS-7599) 2.0 Rev. 00
Ethernet: Atheros AR8131 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (NDIS 6.20)

Drivers are updated.

Hi DC,

It doesn't unless one owns an ASUS P5N-D Motherboard that has a NVIDIA Gigabit LAN onboard and can't get 1.0 gbps but only 100 Mbps in Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit, yet, because I dual-boot with Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 3 installed, I get 1 gbps on that operating system's partition.

My drivers are updated.

The speed is governed by the Router, and by the Ethernet Adapter and its drivers on the computer, especially if not capable of transmitting at 1.0 Gbps.

Is your onboard LAN disabled on the motherboards, because I see you have two Ethernet Cards?

[DoubleChurn]

Nope, those are the onboard ethernet adapters, despite saying PCI-E on it.

The speed is governed by a lot of things, router, hard drive cache, hard drive speed, ethernet cable category, NIC cards, other programs, and maybe some others that I'm not aware of.

I'm curious as to whether you are actually getting gigabit transfer rates. You would need an SSD, cache the data onto your RAM, or run a RAM Disk to do so, as conventional hard drives have a limit as to how fast data can be transfered.

My goal is to bump my transfer rate from an average of 25% to a higher utilization rate as I realize I also cannot get 100% gigabit.

I wonder if it's a power saving feature, or a maximum that the D-link router can handle. Kind of like those stupid spinoffs, where they say it has a gigabit connection, but really, you will never be able to achieve those speeds because there's a bottle neck in the router processing unit. Kind of stupid, cause SATA supports 3Gbps, IDE 133MBps, but the limit is on your hard drive, and most hard drives don't exceed 133MBps...

[thecreator]

Hi DC,

In Windows 7, open Network and Sharing Center. Click on Local Area Connection. This is where you see the Speed. It will only say, 10.0 Mbps, 100.0 Mbps or 1.0 Gbps.

On my copy of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit operating system connected via Ethernet Cable, it saids 100.0 Mbps and not 1.0 Gbps, where I saids in XP, 1.0 Gbps.

Actual speed to the Internet is governed by your ISProvider, not by the D-Link GigaBit Router. Actual speed in your Home Network is governed by the D-Link Router and your Ethernet Adapter Drivers.

[Cobra]

You can also just go to the networking tab of task manager to see your link speed.

[DoubleChurn]

Sorry, I may not have made myself clear enough in the original post.

As mentioned in my original post, my computer recognize a gigabit connection. So when I open the Local Area Connection, or Task Manager, I do see Gigabit (1.0 gigabit) on both computers. However, I am not obtaining those speeds, only 25% of that. My system should be able to perform at 69% of that (see original post).

I am not talking about internet connection. I have a LAN set up (see original post). There's not much point in getting a Gigabit connection in your house if your only use is through the internet. Most ISPs don't offer gigabit connection. The objective of Gigabit is so that you can transfer extremely large files over a LAN.

[DoubleChurn]

Alright, I think I have spent enough time on this topic in research and having a forum going.

Here is my conclusion for the DIR-655, unless someone has a legit post under this comment:
The DIR-655 has a limit of 25% 1.0 Gigabit transfer rate between two computers on a LAN network. (Only about 2.5 times (not 10) better than the typical 100 mbps network transfer rate.)

This seems to be a common issue among all routers on the market. Hence, the entire "gigabit" network fad is a complete hoax. You are unable to achieve anywhere near that speed, in fact, only a quarter of that speed. You would have to be desperate to gain an additional mere 1.5x the normal speed for a complete makeover of your entire network.

In my test I used:
Gigabit Router
Gigabit Cables
Gigabit NICs
815.2mbps and 692.8mbps Hard Drives (Cache: 32MB both)

Result: 256mbps

[tjkaz]

Hi,
There are a lot of writeups on this topic, but you might what to read http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gigabit-ethernet-bandwidth,2321.html.
I personally see numbers higher than what you have posted, when  I transfer large video files from my PC to my Synology NAS which tops out at about 45 MB/s (or 360 Mb/s) - and, I'm using the LAN ports on my DIR-655. This is about what NAS is spec'd to, so not sure if that's the only bottleneck to achieving anything higher.
One good test for you to see if the LAN is the bottle neck is to create a RAM drive on your PC and then try to copy a file to or from it to your server.  This will take the PC HD and the overhead associated with both it and the controller out of the equation.  If you can set up a RAM drive on the server side, then this should prove to be an interesting test and, if your LAN is fine, you should see some very high rates.
There' an old saying that's very applicable here; "A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link."  In this case, there's a lot of links in the chain when transferring data on one computers HD to another computers HD.  The LAN is often blamed because it's the most visible, but in most cases it's not the weak link-even with it's theoretical throughput limitation.
-Tom

Alright, I think I have spent enough time on this topic in research and having a forum going.

Here is my conclusion for the DIR-655, unless someone has a legit post under this comment:
The DIR-655 has a limit of 25% 1.0 Gigabit transfer rate between two computers on a LAN network. (Only about 2.5 times (not 10) better than the typical 100 mbps network transfer rate.)

This seems to be a common issue among all routers on the market. Hence, the entire "gigabit" network fad is a complete hoax. You are unable to achieve anywhere near that speed, in fact, only a quarter of that speed. You would have to be desperate to gain an additional mere 1.5x the normal speed for a complete makeover of your entire network.

In my test I used:
Gigabit Router
Gigabit Cables
Gigabit NICs
815.2mbps and 692.8mbps Hard Drives (Cache: 32MB both)

Result: 256mbps

[marmoduke]

DIR 655 does not always auto-connect correctly with all NICS on the market.  If your connection can be set manually, not auto at the NIC, make damn sure it is FULL DUPLEX at the highest speed possible.

[DoubleChurn]

Thanks Everyone,

tjkaz, I know the limitation is on the bottleneck. the problem was finding the bottleneck, and I addressed the hard drive issue in my original post.

marmoduke, okay, i never knew that...

SOLVED
My transfer speed is now churning out the proper numbers based on my hard drive limits (692.8mbps/86MBps) described in my original post. I am currently getting 66MBps and 60% network utilization. Which I am content with, as the difference of 20MBps I'm willing to accept and will blame it on OS. I do have the WD Green HDD which means it runs slower, so I'm hoping others will get higher speeds still.

I didn't really find the proper solution, but because I thought that the router processor is limiting the speed, I looked into TCP window sizing options. Windows 7 automatically does windows sizing, and the DIR-655 seems to support it (which, I must say, am quite pleased with) by disabling SPI. However, when I disabled SPI in the Advanced-Firewall Settings, it re-enabled it automatically, and since then I got the 66MBps.

People suggested RAMDisk as a faster alternative, this isn't the best solution in my opinion, because you will have to continually copy from the RAMDisk to your HDD and delete the copy in your RAMDisk unless you are using a temporary large file. I would suggest using RAM to increase the Cache size on your HDD. Although, this is speculation, and I haven't tried doing either RAMDisk or Caching your HDD onto RAM.

Cheers,
DC

[tjkaz]

Glad you got it figured out.
My recommendation of using the RAM disk was only as a diagnostic technique to help isolate the issue.