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Networking Slowdown

Started by mbaldw, October 28, 2008, 05:23 hrs

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mbaldw

Hi folks,

Iââ?¬â?¢ve recently been experiencing a slowdown of network traffic on my gigabit router.   I have a D-Link DIR-655 wireless N router, with gigabit Ethernet ports.   My desktop is connected to the router via a Cat 5e cable and according to Windows (XP Home, SP2) is connected as 1.0 GBps.   I also have two laptops (both Windows XP Home, one SP2 the other SP3) connected at 300 MBps via wireless-N cards.   Last night all was well -- I was getting speeds of ~8.5 mbps transferring a video file between the desktop and one of the laptops -- until I installed my Netgear WGPS606 wireless print server.   The WGPS606 doesnââ?¬â?¢t support WPA2 encryption (which my router is configured to use), so itââ?¬â?¢s connected via an Ethernet cable (via its 100MBps Ethernet ports).   With the WGPS606 connected, the transfer speed declined and when moving the same file between the same computers the transfer speed dropped to ~3 mbps, which is what I used to get on my old Linksys Wireless-G router with the desktop cabled in at 100 MBps and the lappie connected wirelessly at 54 MBps.   I played around with various settings in the router (i.e. jumbo frames, QoS etc.) and none made any difference.   However, when I removed the print server from the network, the speeds went back up to 8.5 mbps!

So, Iââ?¬â?¢m wondering whether itââ?¬â?¢s a well known issue that plugging 10/100 Ethernet devices into a gigabit network causes the whole network to slow to 100 MBps speeds?   Maybe was it likely to have just been coincidence that removing the print server solved the problem?   I can see how you might get a bottleneck when transferring data between 100 and 1000 devices, but surely just plugging a 100 device in shouldnââ?¬â?¢t drop the speed between 1000 and 300 connections?   My concern is now that my newly ordered printer (Epson Office B40W, which has a 100 MBps Ethernet port) will similarly cause a slowdown in the network.

Does anyone have any advice or suggestions on this?

Cheers,
Marc.

Buffalo2102

How are the port speeds set on the router and PC's?  If set to auto negotiate then try setting them manually.

I have heard of this happening but it was some time ago....I will have a think and get back to you.

Buff. (scratches head).
Vista x64 Home Premium. Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Abit IP35, 4 Gig Kingston HyperX PC8500C5 DDR2, GTX260, Creative X-Fi Extreme Gamer, Antec 900 Gaming Case.

mbaldw

Hi Buff,

thanks for your help with this.   The PC's port is set to "Auto Detect", but the other options are either "Auto-negotiate 1000 Mbps" or for 10 or 100 Mbps (options for full and half duplex for both).   I presume that the router is also set on auto detect, but I can't find any setting in the config panel to check or alter this.   A bit more searching this afternoon has made me think that most router/switches have a default auto negotiation setting that adjusts the speed of the network to cater for the slowest component.   Assuming this is true, and that I'm unable to alter it, I'm hoping my new printer (Epson B40W) might solve the issue, because the wireless facility is N-compatable and accepts WPA2-AES encryption.   My hope is that I can hook it up wirelessly to the network and forget about the unfortunate impact hard-wiring it to the router would have on the network's speed.

Cheers,
Marc.