A few days ago I purchased a gigabit switch and wireless router so as to upgrade my network. Now I have everything I need for a gigabit network, but it seems that this is not the case, or either there is a fault somewhere.
Network setup:
inet -> modem -> router -> NAS / switch -> network clients (Host 1, Host 2)
Equipment:
router:
Linksys WRT320N v1.0
switch:
Linksys EG005W v3.0
NAS:
Synology DS107+
Host 1:
MSI K9N Neo mobo with on-board Ethernet (nVidia MCP55)
Host 2:
MSI RD480 Neo2 mobo with on-board Ethernet
cable: UTP CAT5e (no more than 5m each, only modem-router one is ~25m)
The slow network speed became apparent when I performed a few ftp file transfers between network clients and the NAS, each time the maximum speed was around 280Mbps (Megabit).
In order to be able to test the network speed without too much variables I connected both the network clients (Host 1 and Host 2) too each other with a Cat5e crossover UTP cable.
Code:
# scp test.bin user@host1:/dev/null
test.bin 100% 1024MB 28.4MB/s 00:36
This test was repeated when I reconnected both hosts to the switch and showed more or less the same result.
I ran some diagnostics on both hosts to be sure but it was confirmed that they indeed have full gigabit capability.
Host 1 - Fedora:
Code:
# ethtool etho0
Settings for eth0:
Supported ports: [ MII ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Speed: 1000Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: MII
PHYAD: 1
Transceiver: external
Auto-negotiation: on
Supports Wake-on: g
Wake-on: d
Link detected: yes
#lshw
*-bridge
description: Ethernet interface
product: MCP55 Ethernet
vendor: nVidia Corporation
physical id: 100
bus info: pci@0000:00:08.0
logical name: eth0
version: a2
serial: 00:16:17:45:04:54
size: 100000000
capacity: 1000000000
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: bridge pm msix msi ht bus_master cap_list ethernet physical mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=forcedeth driverversion=0.61 duplex=full ip=192.168.1.23 latency=0 link=yes maxlatency=20 mingnt=1 multicast=yes port=MII speed=100MB/s
resources: irq:23 memory:f9ff3000-f9ff3fff ioport:c080(size=8) memory:f9ffa800-f9ffa8ff memory:f9ffa400-f9ffa40f
Host 2 - Knoppix:
Code:
#ethtool eth0
Settings for eth0:
Supported ports: [ TP ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Speed: 1000Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: Twisted Pair
PHYAD: 0
Transceiver: internal
Auto-negotiation: on
Link detected: yes
#lspci
02:16.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8169 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 10)
Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. Device 194c
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 23
I/O ports at e400 [size=256]
Memory at ddfff400 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Expansion ROM at ddfc0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2
Kernel driver in use: r8169
Kernel modules: r8169
To my knowledge I meet all requirements for a gigabit network, yet the transfer speeds do not reflect this. To be able to compare results I removed the switch and replaced the router with a WRT54GL model, then connected all other network clients to the router. With this setup I performed:
Code:
# scp test.bin user@host1:/dev/null
test.bin 100% 1024MB 11.1MB/s 01:32
This result was more satisfactory since the theoretical limit of my network was now 12.5MBps (100Mb).
All test thus far indicate that my gigabit network somehow cannot reach it's 1000Mbps limit, even barely 1/4 of it. Whatever could be the cause of this slow network speed? I am really at a loss at this.
