Lousy Performance

Hello all.

Throughput on my small network is lousy. First, here is a brief description
of the topology:

Office:
ISDN LAN Modem w/integrated 10Mb 5-port hub
XPSP2 Workstation (Network Card is 10Mb/Full Duplex)

Basement:
10/100 5-port hub
Several W2KAdv Servers (Network Cards are 100Mb/Full Duplex)

The Office and Basement Hubs are linked.

I regularly copy 4-500MB files from my workstation to various servers. This
can take more than an hour. When I monitor bandwidth using Task Manager, it
rarely goes above 15%. I really wouldn't mind if it pegged the NIC, as long
as it didn't take an hour...

I realize there may be a thousand variable here, but this is a pretty simple
network. I've tried everything I can think of... What should I look for
here?

Thanks all.

David



--
ROT-13 my email address to reply directly

You indicated that your NICs in all your machines are hard-set for 10Mb/Full
Duplex but most inexpensive hubs will allow only 10Mb/Half Duplex. Do you
see a rapidly blinking orange light on your hub during file transfers? That
would mean many collisions are occurring causing the packets to be
re-transmitted which is not efficient. The appearance to the end-user is
network slowness. I would consider getting rid of the hub altogether and
buying a switch. They sell for as little as $40 nowadays a your local
computer store. A switched connection between all your PCs will greatly
improve performance, guaranteed.

http://handsonhowto.com/lan102.html

--
Todd J Heron, MCSE
Windows Server 2003/2000/NT
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and confers no rights

That seems about right to me.

2GB of data is 16Gb of data.

16Gb of data over a 10Mb link = 1600 seconds.

1600 seconds = 26.66 minutes.

Add the fact that you'll never get usually more than 50% throughput, and
that's about an hour.

Add in overhead on the hub, and yeah...that's about right.

Matt Gibson - GSEC

"David Pendleton" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hello all.
>
> Throughput on my small network is lousy. First, here is a brief
> description of the topology:
>
> Office:
> ISDN LAN Modem w/integrated 10Mb 5-port hub
> XPSP2 Workstation (Network Card is 10Mb/Full Duplex)
>
> Basement:
> 10/100 5-port hub
> Several W2KAdv Servers (Network Cards are 100Mb/Full Duplex)
>
> The Office and Basement Hubs are linked.
>
> I regularly copy 4-500MB files from my workstation to various servers.
> This can take more than an hour. When I monitor bandwidth using Task
> Manager, it rarely goes above 15%. I really wouldn't mind if it pegged the
> NIC, as long as it didn't take an hour...
>
> I realize there may be a thousand variable here, but this is a pretty
> simple network. I've tried everything I can think of... What should I look
> for here?
>
> Thanks all.
>
> David
>
>
>
> --
> ROT-13 my email address to reply directly
>

I meant 400 to 500MB files, not 4 500MB files.

Thanks anyway.


"Matt Gibson" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:%(E-Mail Removed)...
> That seems about right to me.
>
> 2GB of data is 16Gb of data.
>
> 16Gb of data over a 10Mb link = 1600 seconds.
>
> 1600 seconds = 26.66 minutes.
>
> Add the fact that you'll never get usually more than 50% throughput, and
> that's about an hour.
>
> Add in overhead on the hub, and yeah...that's about right.
>
> Matt Gibson - GSEC
>
> "David Pendleton" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Hello all.
>>
>> Throughput on my small network is lousy. First, here is a brief
>> description of the topology:
>>
>> Office:
>> ISDN LAN Modem w/integrated 10Mb 5-port hub
>> XPSP2 Workstation (Network Card is 10Mb/Full Duplex)
>>
>> Basement:
>> 10/100 5-port hub
>> Several W2KAdv Servers (Network Cards are 100Mb/Full Duplex)
>>
>> The Office and Basement Hubs are linked.
>>
>> I regularly copy 4-500MB files from my workstation to various servers.
>> This can take more than an hour. When I monitor bandwidth using Task
>> Manager, it rarely goes above 15%. I really wouldn't mind if it pegged
>> the NIC, as long as it didn't take an hour...
>>
>> I realize there may be a thousand variable here, but this is a pretty
>> simple network. I've tried everything I can think of... What should I
>> look for here?
>>
>> Thanks all.
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> ROT-13 my email address to reply directly
>>
>
>

Solved my own problem...

Setting both network cards link speed and duplex to 'Auto Detect' did the
trick.

I just copied a 385MB file in a little over 5 minutes.

Thanks to all that responded.

"David Pendleton" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hello all.
>
> Throughput on my small network is lousy. First, here is a brief
> description of the topology:
>
> Office:
> ISDN LAN Modem w/integrated 10Mb 5-port hub
> XPSP2 Workstation (Network Card is 10Mb/Full Duplex)
>
> Basement:
> 10/100 5-port hub
> Several W2KAdv Servers (Network Cards are 100Mb/Full Duplex)
>
> The Office and Basement Hubs are linked.
>
> I regularly copy 4-500MB files from my workstation to various servers.
> This can take more than an hour. When I monitor bandwidth using Task
> Manager, it rarely goes above 15%. I really wouldn't mind if it pegged the
> NIC, as long as it didn't take an hour...
>
> I realize there may be a thousand variable here, but this is a pretty
> simple network. I've tried everything I can think of... What should I look
> for here?
>
> Thanks all.
>
> David
>
>
>
> --
> ROT-13 my email address to reply directly
>

Doh!

Ah well, got me to break out the old calculator anyway

Glad to hear you got it solved!

Matt Gibson - GSEC
"David Pendleton" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>I meant 400 to 500MB files, not 4 500MB files.
>
> Thanks anyway.
>
>
> "Matt Gibson" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:%(E-Mail Removed)...
>> That seems about right to me.
>>
>> 2GB of data is 16Gb of data.
>>
>> 16Gb of data over a 10Mb link = 1600 seconds.
>>
>> 1600 seconds = 26.66 minutes.
>>
>> Add the fact that you'll never get usually more than 50% throughput, and
>> that's about an hour.
>>
>> Add in overhead on the hub, and yeah...that's about right.
>>
>> Matt Gibson - GSEC
>>
>> "David Pendleton" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>>> Hello all.
>>>
>>> Throughput on my small network is lousy. First, here is a brief
>>> description of the topology:
>>>
>>> Office:
>>> ISDN LAN Modem w/integrated 10Mb 5-port hub
>>> XPSP2 Workstation (Network Card is 10Mb/Full Duplex)
>>>
>>> Basement:
>>> 10/100 5-port hub
>>> Several W2KAdv Servers (Network Cards are 100Mb/Full Duplex)
>>>
>>> The Office and Basement Hubs are linked.
>>>
>>> I regularly copy 4-500MB files from my workstation to various servers.
>>> This can take more than an hour. When I monitor bandwidth using Task
>>> Manager, it rarely goes above 15%. I really wouldn't mind if it pegged
>>> the NIC, as long as it didn't take an hour...
>>>
>>> I realize there may be a thousand variable here, but this is a pretty
>>> simple network. I've tried everything I can think of... What should I
>>> look for here?
>>>
>>> Thanks all.
>>>
>>> David
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> ROT-13 my email address to reply directly
>>>
>>
>>
>
>