Firewall and A/V were disabled, ethernet card is not gigabyte. But when attaching the NAS directly to the computer or through my old Linksys G router, there are no issues. The performance issue seems to be limited to an issue specifically to the DIR-825 and NAS combination. Other than this, I've had no issues with the DIR-825 when accessing files across my LAN.
Anything else I can try before calling D-Link tech support?