Newbie needs some help!!

[Flaus]

Hey guys,

Great site, and I have been learning a ton but it is obvious I have A LONG way to go, lol. I have recently decided to upgrade my network and move to a gigabit setup. So I went out and got a Dlink DIR-655 and Dlink DRT-530T Gigabit NIC's. After more reading, I enabled jumbo frames (9k) on the NIC's and then read that the DIR-655 does not have jumbo frame support. So being the perfectionist that I am I picked up a Dlink DGS-2205 Gigabit switch to have jumbo frames. Prior to picking this up, I transferred some files yesterday and my transfer speed (according to the windows details window under the transfer) was 11MB/s. I was under the impression it should be in the neighborhood of 30-50MB/s (using just the DIR-655). Is there something I missed in the setup to get faster transfer speeds? Or am I misunderstanding MB vs Mb?

I'm going to hook up the switch tonight and see what that does, with the jumbo frames. If you were me, would you just return the DIR-655 and get a cheaper router and keep the switch? Or should I be seeing faster transfer speeds with the router? My network is as follows: 2 PC's (one Vista 64-bit, and one Win7 64-bit), WDTV Live, and soon to come HP Mediasmart EX490. Any advice would help a ton!! Thanks.

**EDIT** So i just copied a 680mb file from one comp to another and open my performance monitor. The network was operating at 95Mbps. Which is obvioulsy not gigabit. Just thought I should put this in here for more info.

 

[Pugs_KDC]

comes down to Hard drives read / write speeds, MB bus speeds, ram size and lots of other varibles... also disable any media players/ scanners while transfering

 

[Flaus]

Ok. My HD's are 7200rpm and I have 4gbs of ram on both computers. So with those in mind, could you think of a problem?

 

[Pugs_KDC]

with your new updated transfer speed that is about right for that set up.... Gbit is the network connection speed which gives you enough "bandwidth" to do thse kinds of speeds... it has always been fact tht you will never get full Gb speeds unles you are on Fibre or have 15K rpm hd/ ssd's. even asa cabler i 'm aware of th elimitiatiosn that the physical hardware puts on those speeds and gives you alot slower real world speeds

 

[Flaus]

Thanks for the help. But I still think I should be getting much faster transfer speeds than 95mbps. I mean, shoudlnt I at least be seeing 200-300mbps minimum? My comps are both AMD x64 Dual Core 2.5ghz processors, 4gb ram, and the like. And I just read the updated review of the DIR-655 A4 which I have, and it has jumbo frames up to 9k. What am I missing? Am i just that naive with this whole thing? I literally have not seen an improvement moving from my old setup to the gigabit.

 

[Pugs_KDC]

yes you are being naive to think that you will get file transfer speeds that fast from "domestic" gear, Jumbo frames is a comercial/ dc concept for when you are truely transfering alot fo data around on a dayily/ hourly basis...

bt you still dont see the whole picture you may have lots of ram and fastish cpu but put in ssd/ 15k rpm hd's with large cach sizes then you might see those speeds

 

[Flaus]

FML. I just can't believe upgrading to a gigabit LAN would be a push, if not hurt performance. lol

 

[Flaus]

Ok, so I doing more testing and came to the conclusion that my Win7 based PC isnt connected at 1gbps. It shows 100mbps. Which would explain all the problems Im having. What I'm not understanding is why its not connected at 1gbps. The same NIC up stairs (Dlink DGE-530T) is connected at 1gbps. So I went to the properties of the device and selected the 1000 Full Duplex. When I do, my computer will no longer connect to the network or internet. Any ideas how to fix the problem?

 

[Jay_S]

my transfer speed (according to the windows details window under the transfer) was 11MB/s.
<snip>
The network was operating at 95Mbps. Which is obvioulsy not gigabit.

Ok, so I doing more testing and came to the conclusion that my Win7 based PC isnt connected at 1gbps. It shows 100mbps. Which would explain all the problems Im having. What I'm not understanding is why its not connected at 1gbps. The same NIC up stairs (Dlink DGE-530T) is connected at 1gbps. So I went to the properties of the device and selected the 1000 Full Duplex. When I do, my computer will no longer connect to the network or internet. Any ideas how to fix the problem?

I'm late to this discussion, but it looks like you figured out your 1st problem. As soon as I read your 1st post I guessed that something was connecting at 100Mb/s. The simple math is 8 bits per byte. So, going from megaBITS to megaBYTES means dividing by 8. Your measured 95Mb/s = 11.8 MB/s.

So why does 1 nic refuse to connect at 1000Mb/s? Could be lots of things...

First thing - check your cables. Some NICs are really picky, and simply wiggling a cable will cause it to kick down to 100Mb/s. You're cables are all cat5e or better, right? Properly terminated? As far away from fluorescent lighting and other sources of RFI?

I can't find any info on a d-link "DRT-530T". Did you mean DGE-530T? That's a PCI-bus NIC, most of which are limited to a maximum of about 700Mb/s. Can you exchange the NIC? If you need PCI, the Intel PRO/1000 GT is only a few dollars more than the d-link DGE-530T, and "just works". Intel's PCI-express version is $30. A PCI-express NIC is required if you ever hope to achieve near-gigabit speeds (see any of Tim's recent SNB articles).

If you're going to stick with the d-link nic's, I'd start by making sure you have the most current drivers. I assume the default speed was set to "Auto"? And hard-setting it to 1000Mb/s killed connectivity? What happens if you hard-set it to 100Mb/s?

What motherboard is this nic in? Are there a lot of other devices on the PCI bus?

Today's consumer gear can easily exceed 100Mb/s network speeds. Again, look at any of Tim's recent DIY NAS articles for confirmation of this. While breaking 100Mb/s is easy, hitting 1000Mb/s is not! You'll quickly discover how difficult (and expensive) it can be. But 200-300 Mb/s is easily achievable.

Jumbo vs no jumbos is an experiment you'll have to conduct on your own, but I personally wouldn't worry about it at all. In most cases any performance increase is not worth potential incompatibilities with network devices that don't have jumbo support (printers, cameras, etc.).

[edit] I don't see Windows 7 drives listed on D-link's site yet. It's possible (probable) that the appropriate 32-bit or 64-bit Vista driver will work with 7. But maybe not?

 

[Flaus]

Hey Jay,
Thanks a lot for the reply. The info really helped out. All the cabling is Cat5e, and the one computer that wouldnt connect was a patch cable I made (go figure). So I swapped computers (Win7 to where the Vista was) and bingo! 1gbps connection. So I isolated the problem to the cable/connections. It was a cable that was ran between the first floor and second and would be just about impossible to replace (loooong story). So I clipped off both ends of the RJ45 connectors and re-jacked (?) the cable and both comps connected at gigabit. Thanks for everybody's help, I'm sure I will be posting again when I get my HP Mediasmart Server (first time homebuyers tax credit check came in today!!!!)

 

[Flaus]

[edit] I don't see Windows 7 drives listed on D-link's site yet. It's possible (probable) that the appropriate 32-bit or 64-bit Vista driver will work with 7. But maybe not?

For anyone with this problem, the appropriate Vista driver (32 or 64-bit) work with the comparable Win7 OS. If your not sure about the hardware working, I found that microsoft has a hardware/software compatibility resource on the windows 7 official site.

 

[Jay_S]

Glad you got it sorted out. Gigabit requires all 4 wire pairs to be properly terminated. I wonder if your old patch cord only had 2 wire pairs terminated?

I've heard stories of (but never had to deal with, thank god) businesses upgrading to gigabit, only to discover that the original structured wiring contractor only terminated 2 pairs (only 2 are required to 100base-T) per run. All those patch panels and wall plates had to be re-done. What a nightmare.

 

[Pugs_KDC]

I've heard stories of (but never had to deal with, thank god) businesses upgrading to gigabit, only to discover that the original structured wiring contractor only terminated 2 pairs (only 2 are required to 100base-T) per run. All those patch panels and wall plates had to be re-done. What a nightmare.

yeah uit blows having to be that guy to come in and reterminate alot of cables.... tho handing them the invoice afterwards always makes me feel better.

I feel even better if it is someones DIY attempt..