Improving slow file transfer on a home network.

edanto

I've just set up a home network (using TCP/IP) and I have pretty slow speeds copying files. 150MB takes about 20 min.
I've ruled out the firewall and the full/half duplex setting on the network cards.

Google pointed me at a page where someone recommended adjusting the interframe gap (to avoid collisions) in the registry and I followed his link to the MS help site. That page describes a problem like mine.

But my registries don't have the entries that I should adjust (after I figure out how to back it up!).

Specifically, I don't have an entry in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ called e100bx (where x should be the number of my network card). There are about 200 or o entries in Services, but none of them seem to be related to the name of my network card and none have anything about '100'; which I'm guessing refers to the Ethernet 10/100.

I've gone past the edge of what I know into the realm of stuff I don't really understand, so any advice would be helpful.:)

bishopLEN

By the sounds of the speed of the copy the highest speed the link is 10Mbits.

I suppose the basic Q's are , what are the network cards on the PC's? What type switch or router are you using?

Collisions won't be a problem on a home network, 10/100/1000 networks have collision detection built in. It will only really be a problem when you have hundreds of PCs.

Also is the cabling of sound quality?

_CreeD_

How are you interconnecting them? PC-PC (if only 2 by crossover cable) and using a Switch with multiple PCs completely rules out collisions (in both cases you have a point-to-point collision domain). In fact you can only use Full Duplex in these cases. Use of a Hub is the only real reason you'd be worried about collisions, and be stuck in Half Duplex - as bishopLEN said this shouldn't be a real obstacle with only a few machines (But collision detection doesn't alleviate bandwidth drops due to congestion, the cards still need to backoff and retransmit data when they're detected - again though it shouldn't be a problem on a small network, just being finicky ).
This all presumes your equipment is operating correctly. You might have problems with EMI, dodgy cables or a malfunctioning NIC flooding broadcasts. Also how are you transferring the files software wise? Straightforward windows sharing or trying to use a private Peer-to-Peer app.(Not advisable, and unlikely but just making sure).
Try a prolonged ping between the troubled machines say "PING -n 200 x.x.x.x", 200 echoes should show you if it's a constant speed issue (Where the majority of replies will be long) or network usage spikes (major jumps in reply time intermittently). If you can see a delay pattern from the Ping results try pinging different machines to see if its localised to one of them, if you get similar results on them all then remove the other PC's until you have a simple pair - same result? change out to 2 other PC's (Presuming you have enough, basically eliminate them). If 2 pairs of PC's, connected only 2 at a time, still have problems then look to your switch.

A lot of vaguery but at this stage there's not enough to go on to be more specific.

edanto

Thanks for the advice - I'll try to fill in the blanks and define the problem a bit better.

bishopLEN wrote:

what are the network cards on the PC's? What type switch or router are you using?

The W2K machine has a 3Com Etherlink XL 10/100 PCI and the XP machine has a National Semiconductor Corp 10/100.
I just set up a network on the XP machine called MSHOME and then the W2K machine was able to join it.

The switch/router I'm using is the Aolynk router that Smart gave me with by BB. I didn't change any settings in it. ( I wasn't sure if it would work at all - this is the first time I've tried something like this)

_CreeD_ wrote:

Use of a Hub is the only real reason you'd be worried about collisions, and be stuck in Half Duplex - as bishopLEN said this shouldn't be a real obstacle with only a few machines

I don't know if what I've described above is a hub or a router or what - this is all a bit new.

I'll get a new set of cables first off, and the other thing you mentioned was the method of sharing files - just plain old vanilla Windows Explorer copying.

Try a prolonged ping between the troubled machines say "PING -n 200 x.x.x.x",

Thanks, tried that and there was no pattern at all, every ping was <1ms with an average of 0ms at the end.

Should I have made any adjustments to by BB router to help the home network side of things?

edanto

/changed thread title

Capt'n Midnight

try a LONG ping too for the crack - times should reflect packet length

ping 192.168.x.y -l 15000

then check max MTU size - start at 1472 and add/subtract 8 to find the biggest

ping 192.168.x.y -f -l 1472

in XP check the mode of the card - it should tell you if in 10 / 100 MB mode

kaimera

Set up an ftp server instead perhaps.

edanto

Thanks to you both.

I'll try those pings and get the card settings when I'm home. Dunno much about setting up a ftp server - but I'll put it down as Plan B.

A guy in work helped me with new cables.

Other than that, is there any chance that my Aolynk router is a bottleneck?

edanto

Slapped the new cables in and no change in the transfer speed.

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

ping 192.168.x.y -l 15000

Avg 26ms with all 4 pings the same; both puters had the same times.

wrote:

then check max MTU size - start at 1472 and add/subtract 8 to find the biggest

Not a clue what it means, but packets <= 1472 got a reply and any bigger 'packets need to be fragmented, but DF set'. Same on both.

in XP check the mode of the card - it should tell you if in 10 / 100 MB mode

It says AutoNeg 10/100 HD/FD (with Receive buffer count set to 40) on the XP lappy and there are loads of settings on the 3Com card on the 2K box.
802.1p support is disabled, duplex mode is hardware default, flow control enabled, and Rx and Tx checksum offload both enabled; couldn't see any settings that mentioned 10/100ness though.

continued appreciation!

TimTim

Start->Network Connections->Double click on your network card.

Should tell you what speed you are connected at. It should go in this order.

Status:
Duration:
Speed:

edanto

Speed:100Mbps

In that Network connections bit - it has an entry for a 1394 connection. It's disabled and enabling it doesn't make any change to the speed. I don't know why it's there - I don't have a firewire port on the machine. Any relevance?

edanto

I've still got the same slow transfer speed - any suggestions would be really appreciated.

Thanks.

dubambman

If you can get your hands on a crossover cable you could connect the 2 computers together directly, this would allow you to determine if the hub is causing the speed problems. You can get a crossover cable in peats or maplins for about 10 euro