Help! Lenovo r61 averages 10MB/s in a GBit environment

[rpm8200]

Hi folks,
I am new to this forum. Previously I was only interested in NAS reviews and charts but now I found this forum with some interesting topics and asked myself if somebody can answer why my lenovo r61 is far too slow in GBit Lan.

First of all: I have a GBit switched network and CAT7 wires.
Normally, I have a QNap TS 409 running (and this NAS only delivers about 12-18MB/s in RAID5 mode so the really bad performance of the r61 did not strike out). While testing the TS 439 I experianced that my desktop PC is able to transfer 50-55MB/s and the Lenovo with onboard Network Card only does 10-12MB/s.

I already tried a PCMCIA GBit Card but it did not make any difference (is there a transfer limitation around 10MB/s due to PCMCIA interface?).

The Lenovo connection speed is set to 1000Mb/s... if I go to the connection properties it also shows a connection speed of 1000Mb/s. But performance is rather 100Mb/s.

Both Laptop and Desktop are running AntiVirXP for virusprotection, the Laptop runs XP, the Desktop is multiboot and delivers the mentioned transfer rate of 50MB/s+ with any installed OS (XP,Vista, Suse (Suse slightly better speed up to 60MB/s)).

WTF makes my lenovo that slow... any ideas? Is it normal for a laptop to have that poor transfer rates???? I am convinced the Lenovo is a good workhorse... but is this effect caused by crappy hardware?

Any suggestions what I could do? Are there any experiances confirming my situation or are there contrairy experiances to mine?

Any help/ suggestions is/are welcome!

 

[thiggins]

If you have jumbo frames enabled on the Lenovo, shut them off. Sometimes they hurt performance rather than help.

Are you CPU limited during the transfer?

Check your ping times to see if they are above 1ms.

Could be hard drive limitation. Try checking your network transfer speed with iperf / jperf.

 

[claykin]

Have you checked Lenovo's support site for a new driver for your NIC? Or run Lenovo's System Update software and let it search for avail updates.

Cat 7 cabling?

 

[rpm8200]

Hi there and thank you both for posting in my thread!
First I apologize for beeing away for so long. I had vacation and no internet meanwhile (sometimes it is very nice to experiance that you don't really need it to breath, eat, sleep... live ). But now I am back and still looking for an answer.

To have Your questions answered:
thiggins: I do not use jumbo frames. As far as I remember, they are not featured by the OEM onboard network card driver by Lenovo. Could take another look to ensure (but I am pretty sure they are not there and if they are, they are not activated -> will check this if at home today evening). Also I am pretty sure that I am not CPU limited while transmitting.
The Notebook is used for www, eMail and to record movies from digital satelite TV by extern USB Card. Not pretty much more to do there. It is an r61 with core2duo CPU (2,0 GHz IIRC, that should be fat enough for anything). But I will take a look on CPU usage if at home & transferring next files. As you can assume from above said recording things: I record movies on R61 and transfer them to my main PC (Desktop). There I process them (demuxing, cutting, muxing) and save them to my NAS. Transfer from R61 to desktop (constantly files larger than 1GB, sometimes up to 5GB) is way too slow (10MB/s approx).
Hm Network speed check by iperf / jperf... will do that today at home. Ping times btw. should be ok (less than 1ms).

You think the harddrive could limit as low as 10MB/s...? Hm. Would be a mess... is there a way to test it (software) easyly or is this complicated procedure?

claykin: I had Lenovo system updates running each month (I think its a great feature that is not provided by any other manufacturer -> like this very much). I think Cat 5 would be suitable/enough for GBit Ethernet but I have Cat7 cabeling throughout. The cables are not the problem, that much is sure.

 

[claykin]

Do you have any 10/100 devices connected to your ethernet switch? As a test try disconnecting them, leaving only the Lenovo R61 and the QNAP NAS. See if the transfer rate improves. Also, I assume you've made sure that QNAP is properly set for Gigabit (and like Tim mentioned for now its probably best to turn off Jumbo Frames in the NAS and on the NIC).

Where in the world did you buy Cat7 cabling? Its not even a standard and probably won't be recognized for quite some time, if ever in its current specified form. See here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_7_cable

I wonder if you could be getting some weird crosstalk on this Cat7 cable. Try to also test with a Cat5e.

 

[thiggins]

What file transfer speed do you get between the Lenovo and the desktop?

 

[rpm8200]

claykin: Following devices are connected to my GBit Swith (also tried another GBit switch -> same shirt different ).:

1) The DSL Modem (may be perhaps a 10/100 device -> don't know)
2) The Lenovo R61
3) a desktop PC (GBit network card, Quadcore, multiboot)
4) QNap 409 NAS
5) Conceptronic Mediaplayer CFULLHDMAi

I turn on the NAS if I want to watch movies or if I have to copy files to it. It is not a 24/7 runner. Sometimes it is switched off for days. Same with the mediaplayer. It is connected but most time it is switched off. Btw: the CFULLHDMAi is also a GBit device.

If I take a look at the connection properties on R61, the connection is shown working with GBit speed. Don't really think it is a problem of a 10/100 device plugged into the switch. I could also test it by directly connecting Desktop and Notebook. I am sure there won't be any change in speed.

I don't really often transfer files from R61 to NAS. Normally files are copied to Desktop PC (as described in previous post). But the transfer speeds don't differ I think. Both targets do show speeds round-about 10MB/s with source R61.

I did test the 439 for two days at home as I bought this for my company (where I do some admin tasks, too). Here I discovered that copy from Desktop PC to NAS can run at 50MB/s+... but from R61 to 439: still 10MB/s. If both devices had transfer rates around 50MB/s to TS-439 I would have blamed the 409 to be that slow. But that's not the fact.

PC - 439 -> speed ok
PC - 409 -> speed ok (sure it is slower than above)
R61 - 409 -> speed ok (could be better, but does not really strike cause 409 is weak)
R61 - 439 -> slow
R61 - PC -> slow

Cat7 cables? No problem here. We did move our company to new site and did cabling from new. All cables are Cat7. At least they are labeled Cat7. In Europe no problem to get Cat7 cables. Not even significantly more expensive than Cat5e. This is where I got my Cat7 cables from.

I sure can try Cat5e. Don't expect any changes from this. Can test this today evening (well... I've got much to test when home I fear!).

thiggins: This is main problem (I think I didn't describe the problem correctly in initial post). Sure, R61 -409 is poor speed but I don't use this very often. Between PC and R61 I do exchange much data and this is real slow, too.
While PC is able to run high speeds together with TS-439, it is way too slow with R61. I think R61 did never really exceed 12MB/s transfer rate (never mind which communication- partner it was exchanging with) which I think is quite poor.

R61 Network card is in GBit Mode, Connection is shown as GBit connection but transfer speed limits to 10-12MB/s.

 

[thiggins]

Only thing I can think of is to check the Lenovo site specifically to see if they have an Ethernet driver update that hasn't been automatically loaded.

 

[claykin]

Only thing I can think of is to check the Lenovo site specifically to see if they have an Ethernet driver update that hasn't been automatically loaded.

Or check Windows Update and run a Custom scan. See if a NIC driver shows up in the HARDWARE section. I've seen this before with other Lenovo laptops that use certain Intel Pro/1000 NICs.

One other thing to try is to uninstall the NIC from Device Manager then do a hardware scan and let Windows reinstall the NIC.

Not to keep beating the Cat7 dead horse, but do those cables have shielded connectors on them? Look for the metal shield surrounding the plastic connector end near where the lock tab and pins reside. If not, for certain you do not have Cat7 cabling. Even if you do, all it means is the connector is shielded, but still may not be Cat7. Also, Cat7 bulk of 1K feet is between $500-$550 where Cat5e shielded or unshielded can be purchased for well under $100 for 1K feet. Quite odd.

I think you may have been taken by a cable scammer!

Regardless of what cable you really have, my recommendation would be to never buy cabling that is not recognized by TIA/EIA or IEEE. Its a waste of money because more often than not the cabling standard changes before its approved and those early adopters are often left very short changed. For now the best standard in copper is Cat6a. if you want more future proofing, go with fiber and be prepared to pay dearly.

 

[rpm8200]

Update:
Checked Network Card Driver and updated it and the transfer speeds from R61 to PC did improve to ~23MB/s.

Besides,
I tried to connect via Cat5e (no improvement)
I tried to connect directly (no router) via Cat5e (no Improvement)
I tried to connect directly (no router) via Cat7 (no improvement)
I can confirm ping time is less than 1ms (but did not yet perform iperf)

Well 20MB/s is better than 10 but still this is far away from 50 MB/s that have been achievied by PC to TS-439 (and should be "normal" in a GBit Lan). I would expect that R61 has much more arithmetic power than a TS-439 and the network card won't be that much better on a TS-439...? So why is R61 still slow?

BTW: I have seen that the DVB recording program seems to create some load while running. As this is running 24/7, also if I copy files this does improve the transfer speed if I turn it off. The load seems to constantly rise over the hours while running the DVB program -> from 10% up to 50%.

If turned off, the transfer speeds reach up to 28MB/s.

Well... 5MB/s more or less (running DVB recording or not)... I think the transfer speed still should double to be "ok" for GBit Ethernet, shouldn't it? 50-60 MB/s should be possible between a Notebook and a Desktop PC in GBit Lan. I am still stuck at half speed.

Any further ideas?

What about the HDD? How can I check if it delivers enough datarate?

 

[thiggins]

I think at this point, you have fixed the NIC problem. Your speed is now over 100 Mbps, where before it wasn't.

Speed limit now is most likely the notebook drive.

 

[BriComp]

Use something like HdTune to check disk speed :- http://www.hdtune.com
Your disk drive may also be fragmented which will play havoke with throughput.

 

[rpm8200]

Okay, thanks folks!
I will test the hdd speed. I hope this is not the limiting factor as I don't really know what to do to speed this up. Well, will report next week.
thx again to you for your suggestions!

 

[vfox]

Had this exact problem on a Lenovo T530.
Disabled the WLAN card and my network transfer speeds jumped dramatically

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
There is a HD speed tester too, probably it is IDE drive, not SATA in your R61. Also Lenovo drivers are behind vendor's latest driver. If Intel NIC, check on Intel support site. I have Lenovo T61 and Quad cpu older desktop and newer ASUS i7 laptop. HDD in T61 is IDE but 7200rpm with bigger cache. All 3 show similar transfer rate against NAS(Synology DS713+ with upgraded memory, 2x4TB RAID1)