Gigabit LAN upload 25%-50% of download

[Andy Foster]

Been searching the internet for days now with no joy. Hope somebody here can help. This problem is purely internal LAN and not ISP related.

I have a Lenovo ThinkServer TS140 running win8.1 pro connected by Intel Ethernet Connection I217-LM gigabit adapter and cat6a cable (6ft) to ISP router (vodafone, actually huawei under the covers). To test speeds I am using TotuSoft LAN Speed Test. Load their Speed Test Server so that everything runs from RAM, no disk delays.

Take my HP Pavilion Gaming laptop running win 10 (1909) and connect by inbuilt Realtek Gaming GBE Family Controller and cat6a cable to router. Run LAN Speed Test and I get 600-700Mb/s read which is fine, but transmit is only 150-160Mb/s.

If I switch the speed test round and run from ThinkServer I get read 400Mb/s and transmit 200Mb/s.

So something is throttling somewhere.

I have changed cables, I tried connecting via my old TP-LINK Archer C7 with nothing else connected and got similar results. Windows up to date. Drivers up to date as far as I know.

After all my searching the only thing I actually used was SpeedGuide's TCP Optimizer on both machines. Helped a bit with general network performance but not the major problem.

Any ideas anybody. I do also see an imbalance on wifi from laptop, not as marked, but that may be due to max speeds being reduced (receive on laptop is 200-250Mb/s on laptop).

Any help gratefully received as my hair is coming out now and my vision blurred due to MASSIVE internet browsing looking for a solution.

 

[degrub]

or caching.
many here have used iPerf for lan testing. Have a search of the threads.
You could also just use a full duplex gigabit switch between the two devices to take the router out of the equation.
Should give the same results if you are just going between two lan ports on the router .

Also, make sure you are not going over wireless. That has tripped up many a test.

 

[Andy Foster]

cacheing where exactly ? Specifically using LAN Speedtest Server as I understand it runs RAM to RAM. May give iperf a try, or more probably the jperf installation.

My initial suspect was the Huawei router which was I tried it with my retired TP-LINK Archer C7 with just the 2 PC's attached. Same result, well very slighty faster download, upload still throttled below 200Mb/s. I didn't suspect TP-LINK would have throttled in that manner.

Yup fallen in to the wifi still active trap before. Wifi was not connected, besides there is no way I would get 600-700Mb/s even close range out of my wifi.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Do you have a third wired device to test with? The problem appears to be with one or other of the computers. If you tested with another device you could determine which specific device it was.

 

[Andy Foster]

Unfortunately no, the only other I have is a Lenovo G505S laptop which they documented as having 1G lan but turned out to be Fast Ethernet, Qualcomm Atheros 8172/8176/8178 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller according to the driver. I mean I could try it but don't think it will reveal anything.

 

[Andy Foster]

Stuck my d-link switch in front of the router and connected the server and laptop but no difference. I think I need to peruse jperf for a bit to get it to saturate the link. Will check the forum and other links.

I was rather hoping for a "Oh, you just need to change this in Win 10 scenario". Will have to try and get a mates box to provide 3rd device.

 

[Andy Foster]

The problem appears to be with one or other of the computers.

Are you thinking hardware or software, Colin?

 

[ColinTaylor]

Are you thinking hardware or software, Colin?

Software. If it were hardware I would expect it to either not work at all or fallback to 100Mbps. Do you have any "fancy" network monitoring tools or "gaming drivers" installed on either device? It's also worth temporarily turning off any security software (e.g. anti-virus, etc.) just in case that is interfering with things.

 

[Andy Foster]

Agreed, software was what I was expecting, to be exact windows. No monitoring software that should be active. Inssider 4 installed but make sure not running when testing. Not aware of any background component there. No gaming drivers that I know of, no games ever installed. Norton Security installed on both, I did try turning off the firewall both ends during some testing with no effect, back on now of course. Didn't expect the anti-virus to be checking RAM to RAM transfers, am I wrong there ? Till now I've been trying to run tests in a live environment which reflects real world but I guess on this bug hunt I may have to go further.

 

[ColinTaylor]

You could try booting up one of the machines with an Ubuntu Live DVD/USB, thus eliminating the entire OS as a potential source of the problem.

 

[Andy Foster]

I could. In the meantime just turned more bits of Norton off on both machines, running wifi so I don't have to run to the attic at the moment, and the upload (laptop->server) just doubled to nearly 400mbps over wifi (PHY T:650/R:650) . Download on the other hand didn't change even though settings the same. Right then, on Monday, my next free time, we shall be mostly pointing the finger at Norton.

Sorry guys, that was stupid of me not check that further before. From experience should have suspected Norton, had enough troubles in the past. We shall see what next week brings.

Thanks for your help and patience so far. I may be back.

 

[Andy Foster]

Just as closure on this. I ended up taking Norton off and replacing with free Kaspersky Cloud, but just the AV component. I wasn't very meticulous in the end but the problem was either in the intrusion protection or wifi protection components of the Norton, not the firewall.

Using iperf with 5 parallel streams the Wi-Fi (PHY T:650/R:650Mbps) connection now maxes out around 400Mbps up and down. TotuSoft LAN Speedtest reveals 400Mbps upload from laptop to server, download still bottlenecking at 220Mbps with TotuSoft. Not sure where this is coming from yet.

Connecting laptop direct to router by cable, using iPerf with 1 stream, server as server to laptop as client is 900+Mbps, laptop as server to server as client is 675+Mbps.

So still some imbalance but workable for now. Server is scheduled for rebuild with Win 10 in the new year, so will return to diagnostics then.

Thanks again for your help.

 

[dosborne]

I ended up taking Norton off and replacing with free Kaspersky Cloud, but just the AV component.

Never had a good experience with Norton and tried many times over the last couple of decades. It was always resource intensive to the point where the PC was running about 1/2 speed or worse.

 

[coxhaus]

Why not run Microsoft's anti-virus? They are getting beat up with ransom wear and Microsoft's Windows Defender is pretty good right now. I would not run Kasper anything.