100Mbit PCcard only running at 10Mbits, help!

Hi everyone

I have a 100Mbit PCMCIA NIC in my laptop which will only run at 10%
capacity even though the PC at the other end is definitely 100Mbit and
has run at 100Mbit in the past. The PCMCIA bus is a Texas Instruments
PCI-1225 CardBus Controller which according to the TI website has:
'Pipelined Architecture Allows Greater Than 130-MBps Throughput From
CardBus-to-PCI and From PCI-to-CardBus' (see
http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folder.../pci1225.html).

Does this mean its 130MBps full duplex or only one way thus preventing a
true 100Mbit connection?

Both systems WinXP Pro, a P3 600 384MB RAM and XP 2600+ 256MB RAM, both
show 100Mbps connection in the network interface properties, connection
type, autosense (only option that provides 100Mbps, the others provide
only 100Kbps) manufacturer: sitecom.

Thanks for your help
--
Dave Williams

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 21:07:56 +0000, Dave Williams <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Hi everyone
>
>I have a 100Mbit PCMCIA NIC in my laptop which will only run at 10%
>capacity even though the PC at the other end is definitely 100Mbit and
>has run at 100Mbit in the past. The PCMCIA bus is a Texas Instruments
>PCI-1225 CardBus Controller which according to the TI website has:
>'Pipelined Architecture Allows Greater Than 130-MBps Throughput From
>CardBus-to-PCI and From PCI-to-CardBus' (see
>http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folder.../pci1225.html).
>
>Does this mean its 130MBps full duplex or only one way thus preventing a
>true 100Mbit connection?
>
>Both systems WinXP Pro, a P3 600 384MB RAM and XP 2600+ 256MB RAM, both
>show 100Mbps connection in the network interface properties, connection
>type, autosense (only option that provides 100Mbps, the others provide
>only 100Kbps) manufacturer: sitecom.
>
>Thanks for your help

It appears you are saying both cards actually indicate they are operating
their media connections at 100mbps/full duplex, therefore the conclusion I
draw is you are complaining about throughput. Correct?

Specsmanship: the claim is most likely the theoretical peak throughput in one
direction (obviously if you're going for "peak" you can't be switching from
reads to writes and back). What does that mean? Well, electronically, they can
wiggle the wires at 33mhz.

That doesn't mean your network adapter can use all or even most of that peak
throughput to do actual work. Efficiency of the nic and its driver alike
verses transaction overhead will dictate how fast your network adapter can
move real data...

/daytripper

Well, I have a netgear fw/router box (FR314) connecting 2 Windows 2000 Pro
machines together, I get approx 50Mbit/s everytime I transfer a large enough
file (disk sharing) ... both pc's have 100Mbit nic's.

You ort to be getting more than 10Mbit I should think - assuming both pc's can
cope with the speed you want (50Mbit/s = a tad over 6MByte/s).

Saying that, I can only ever get 10Mbit from my laptop (pcmcia card bus card),
even if I set the laptops nic to 100Mbit full-dup ... it seems to have a problem
with my netgear router, the laptop card won't see the routers 100Mbit lan ports
as 100Mbit, it only wants to see them as 10Mbit ... connecting a simple hub
between the laptop and the router box fixes this though - the laptop nic then
see's the lan as 100Mbit.

Clive

In message <(E-Mail Removed)>,
(E-Mail Removed) writes
>
>Well, I have a netgear fw/router box (FR314) connecting 2 Windows 2000 Pro
>machines together, I get approx 50Mbit/s everytime I transfer a large enough
>file (disk sharing) ... both pc's have 100Mbit nic's.
>
>You ort to be getting more than 10Mbit I should think - assuming both pc's can
>cope with the speed you want (50Mbit/s = a tad over 6MByte/s).
>
>Saying that, I can only ever get 10Mbit from my laptop (pcmcia card bus card),
>even if I set the laptops nic to 100Mbit full-dup ... it seems to have
>a problem
>with my netgear router, the laptop card won't see the routers 100Mbit lan ports
>as 100Mbit, it only wants to see them as 10Mbit ... connecting a simple hub
>between the laptop and the router box fixes this though - the laptop nic then
>see's the lan as 100Mbit.
>
>Clive
>

Does your laptop manage more than 10Mbps when its running through the
hub and showing 100Mbps?

On the task manager networking graph both my machines claim 100Mbit
connections but when copying a big file from the laptop to the tabletop
PC (or visa versa, directly through a twisted pair (?) cable) the max.
data throughput is a touch under 10% and never peaks over this. As
there's no hub or router and both cards claim 100Mbit and the cardbus
claims 130Mbit peak it must be drivers or someone isn't telling the
whole truth about their specs. Even the drivers are claiming 100Mbit
though.

Daytripper mentions 'Efficiency of the nic and its driver alike verses
transaction overhead will dictate how fast your network adapter can move
real data... '. If that's the way things are then I could go out and buy
a gigabit nic only to find it's a little 'inefficient' and can only
manage 5Mbits. That certainly wouldn't make a satisfied customer. I
could accept that maybe my PCMCIA nic can only peak at 100Mbps and
averages less but because it never gets over 10Mbps I'm thinking there
must be a solvable problem here . . . . but I'm stuck. I'm aiming for at
least 5MB/sec for a VST networking program so anything under and the
100Mbps nic I bought is a waste of money. I already have a 10Mbit card
that can manage 10Mbps (!).

Any ideas? Thanks for your time.
--
Dave Williams

On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 23:26:36 +0000, Dave Williams <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
[snipped]
>Daytripper mentions 'Efficiency of the nic and its driver alike verses
>transaction overhead will dictate how fast your network adapter can move
>real data... '. If that's the way things are then I could go out and buy
>a gigabit nic only to find it's a little 'inefficient' and can only
>manage 5Mbits.

And yet, that IS the way things are.

Go stick your gigabit card in a conventional 33mhz/32b peecee PCI bus and see
if you ever hit anything remotely close to a cooked gig.

Yet, the card fits the slot - surely something must be wrong?
Well, no. That's the way it is.

You wouldn't be the first person to notice his "100mbit" lan running at
significantly lower than peak throughput. If the nic uses host resources to
move data instead of an embedded engine, and your system can't chug through
the driver code fast enough to keep the phy fed, you get what you get...

Finally, just because there's always the possibility of excessive error rates,
have you tried a different cable yet?

/daytripper (Otherwise, that's the way it is ;-)

Dave,

You mentioned that your laptop has a CardBus controller. But I
could not help notice you did not state whether your NIC is a
32-bit CardBus or 16-bit PC Card.

16-bit PC Cards are roughly equivalent to legacy 16-bit ISA
cards with a theoretical maximum throughput of 10~20Mbps. That
may help explain your situation.

In message <ux4zb.22257$(E-Mail Removed)>, Michael J.
Apollyon <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>Dave,
>
>You mentioned that your laptop has a CardBus controller. But I
>could not help notice you did not state whether your NIC is a
>32-bit CardBus or 16-bit PC Card.
>
>16-bit PC Cards are roughly equivalent to legacy 16-bit ISA
>cards with a theoretical maximum throughput of 10~20Mbps. That
>may help explain your situation.
>
>

According to the manufacturer's website it is 32-bit, capable of 130Mbit
peak flow, hence the 10Mbit limitation is puzzling me . . .
--
Dave Williams

In message <(E-Mail Removed)>, daytripper
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 23:26:36 +0000, Dave Williams <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>[snipped]
>>Daytripper mentions 'Efficiency of the nic and its driver alike verses
>>transaction overhead will dictate how fast your network adapter can move
>>real data... '. If that's the way things are then I could go out and buy
>>a gigabit nic only to find it's a little 'inefficient' and can only
>>manage 5Mbits.
>
>Go stick your gigabit card in a conventional 33mhz/32b peecee PCI bus and see
>if you ever hit anything remotely close to a cooked gig.
>
>You wouldn't be the first person to notice his "100mbit" lan running at
>significantly lower than peak throughput. If the nic uses host resources to
>move data instead of an embedded engine, and your system can't chug through
>the driver code fast enough to keep the phy fed, you get what you get...
>
>Finally, just because there's always the possibility of excessive error rates,
>have you tried a different cable yet?

I understand the possibility of bus limitations but the specs of this
bus are 130Mbit. I don't know hardware in much detail and I understand
the quoted 130Mbits may be in a different context to actual data
throughput so I've quoted some of the specs below to see if you may be
able to shed some light on it. My 10Mbps is so much less than the quoted
130Mbps I am assuming the bus isn't the bottle neck. Here are some of
the specs, the last one being the one I've been referring to:

-PCI Bus Power Management Interface Specification 1.0 Compliant
ACPI 1.0 Compliant
-Fully Compatible With the Intelâ„¢ 430TX (Mobile Triton II) Chipset
-Packaged in a 208-Pin Low-Profile QFP (PDV) or GHK High Density Ball
Grid Array (BGA)
-PCI Local Bus Specification Revision 2.2 Compliant
-1997 PC Card Standard Compliant
-PC 99 Compliant
-3.3-V Core Logic With Universal PCI Interfaces Compatible With 3.3-V
and 5-VPCI Signaling Environments
-Mix-and-Match 5-V/3.3-V 16-bit PC Cards and 3.3-V CardBus Cards
-Supports Two PC Card or CardBus Slots With Hot Insertion and Removal
-Uses Serial Interface to TI TPS2202/2206 Dual-Slot PC Card Power Switch
-Supports Burst Transfers to Maximize Data Throughput on the PCI Bus and
CardBus Bus
-Supports Parallel PCI Interrupts, Parallel ISA IRQ and Parallel PCI
Interrupts, SerialISA IRQ With Parallel PCI Interrupts, and Serial ISA
IRQ and PCI Interrupts
-Serial EEPROM Interface for Loading Subsystem ID and Subsystem Vendor
ID
-Pipelined Architecture Allows Greater Than 130-MBps Throughput From
CardBus-to-PCI and From PCI-to-CardBus

Thanks for your input!

I'm yet to try another cable . . .

--
Dave Williams

In message <QTKOszEYZSz$(E-Mail Removed)>, Dave Williams
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>In message <ux4zb.22257$(E-Mail Removed)>, Michael J.
>Apollyon <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>>Dave,
>>
>>You mentioned that your laptop has a CardBus controller. But I
>>could not help notice you did not state whether your NIC is a
>>32-bit CardBus or 16-bit PC Card.
>>
>>16-bit PC Cards are roughly equivalent to legacy 16-bit ISA
>>cards with a theoretical maximum throughput of 10~20Mbps. That
>>may help explain your situation.
>>
>>
>
>According to the manufacturer's website it is 32-bit, capable of
>130Mbit peak flow, hence the 10Mbit limitation is puzzling me . . .

Apologies! It is only 16-bit but does claim 130Mbit CardBus-to-PCI data
throughput. I've quoted some of the specs the other thread. I suppose
the bottle neck could be else where, like the 16-bit part of the
CardBus, but wouldn't that make the 130Mbit CardBus-to-PCI capability
pointless?
--
Dave Williams

>>> You mentioned that your laptop has a CardBus controller. But I
>>> could not help notice you did not state whether your NIC is a
>>> 32-bit CardBus or 16-bit PC Card.
>>>
>>> 16-bit PC Cards are roughly equivalent to legacy 16-bit ISA
>>> cards with a theoretical maximum throughput of 10~20Mbps. That
>>> may help explain your situation.
>>
>> According to the manufacturer's website it is 32-bit, capable of
>> 130Mbit peak flow, hence the 10Mbit limitation is puzzling me . . .
>
> Apologies! It is only 16-bit but does claim 130Mbit CardBus-to-PCI data
> throughput. I've quoted some of the specs the other thread. I suppose
> the bottle neck could be else where, like the 16-bit part of the
> CardBus, but wouldn't that make the 130Mbit CardBus-to-PCI capability
> pointless?

The source of your bottleneck is not the laptop's CardBus controller, it
is your 16-bit PC Card Network Adapter. Replace it with a 32-bit
CardBus unit and you will achieve near 100Mbps network speeds.

Fast Ethernet 16-bit PC Cards (and older ISA cards) were once common.
They would get you on a 100Mbps network, but don't expect them to
perform ANYWHERE near that speed. (I still have an Argosy EN200 10/100
PCMCIA card in my old ThinkPad 760C.)

32-bit CardBus cards can be distinguished from their lowly 16-bit
siblings by a brass or gold grounding strip at the connector end.