Ultra slow network
 

Hello every1,

A week ago I made the big step to linux. Before this I used Win2k as a file-server with a 3com 1Gb 5-switch. And because my new workstation came with a 1Gb nic, I also upgrade the server with a 3com 1Gb nic. I thought this would save me a lot of time while transfering my files. Unfortunately the s/w on the server screwed up the speed. I only got 7% performance when i checked at the Win task manager.

So now I have installed slackware 10.1 and with the help of a friend and some tutorials i've been able to set up my new server. I got my internet+sharing working and I made some file sharings with samba. But now when i connect to one of the shares with my WinXP, I get even slower transfer rates as before! Now it is 1% or less!

As i'm not familiar with any commands concerning network configuration, i'am totally lost here. I tried commands like lspci, dmesg and ifconfig but i don't know what hell i'm looking at when it gives me an output.

So any help would be very much appreciated!!



Thanks anyways!
Robbert

Despite what your other Win2k machine says, can you find out what the actual throughput is? When you say it's 1% does that mean it's runing in 10 MBPs equivalent mode (1% of 1000 MBPs)?

Issue an `lspci -v` and fill us in on the info for your NIC. Mine looks like this for reference:
The part in bold is the chipset and revision number. Try searching that and "drivers for Linux" on google and see what happens.

I have a feeling your system is not properly sensing your media type (10/100/1000). You may need a special driver to allow you to issue
ifconfig eth1 media 1000baseTX
to put the device in gigabit mode. 10BaseT, 100BaseT are pretty well-supported media types, so try 100BaseT and see if that improves things.

This is for BSD and Intel (not 3COM) but it might be helpful:
http://www.gsp.com/cgi-bin/man.cgi?section=4&topic=gx

PS: I just checked the kernel configuration and it seems they only have one gigabit 3com driver, which I believe is compiled in or module-ized in the default slackware kernel (I compiled my own)
Alteon AceNIC/3Com 3C985/NetGear GA620 Gigabit support ACENIC

Hi michaelsanford, thanks for replying!

I did the 'lspci -v' command and you see the results below here. I also thought that it could have been a driver problem but didn't know (and still don't) how to find that out. Although 00:09.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c940 1000Base? (rev 10) seems to be give a hint. Specially because you said that the default kernel only comes with the 3Com 3C985 driver. I never installed other drivers.

Tomorrow I will have a closer look at the site you pointed me too. I saw they have a lot of info about the ipconfig comand.

Any other input is still very much appreciated!

Thanks again!

Robbert



00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8366/A/7 [Apollo KT266/A/333]
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0
Memory at e8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=64M]
Capabilities: [a0] AGP version 2.0
Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8366/A/7 [Apollo KT266/A/333 AGP] (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 0
Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=0
Memory behind bridge: ec000000-edffffff
Prefetchable memory behind bridge: e0000000-e7ffffff
Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:09.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c940 1000Base? (rev 10)
Subsystem: 3Com Corporation: Unknown device 0020
Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 10
Memory at ef000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
I/O ports at c000 [size=256]
Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [50] Vital Product Data

00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905B 100BaseTX [Cyclone] (rev 24)
Subsystem: 3Com Corporation 3C905B Fast Etherlink XL 10/100
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 12
I/O ports at c400 [size=128]
Memory at ef004000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128]
Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1

00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233 PCI to ISA Bridge
Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233 PCI to ISA Bridge
Flags: bus master, stepping, medium devsel, latency 0
Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C/VT8235 PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT8233/A/C/VT8235 PIPC Bus Master IDE
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
I/O ports at c800 [size=16]
Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

00:11.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6202 [USB 2.0 controller] (rev 1b) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. (Wrong ID) USB Controller
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 12
I/O ports at cc00 [size=32]
Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:11.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6202 [USB 2.0 controller] (rev 1b) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. (Wrong ID) USB Controller
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 12
I/O ports at d000 [size=32]
Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:11.4 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6202 [USB 2.0 controller] (rev 1b) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. (Wrong ID) USB Controller
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 12
I/O ports at d400 [size=32]
Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:13.0 RAID bus controller: Triones Technologies, Inc. HPT366/368/370/370A/372 (rev 05)
Subsystem: Triones Technologies, Inc. HPT370A
Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 120, IRQ 10
I/O ports at d800 [size=8]
I/O ports at dc00 [size=4]
I/O ports at e000 [size=8]
I/O ports at e400 [size=4]
I/O ports at e800 [size=256]
Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 MX/MX 400] (rev b2) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
Memory at ec000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=64K]
Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [44] AGP version 2.0

Hey look what comes up at Google at the top when you search for 3Com Corporation 3c940 linux: the Linuxquestion.org HCL ;) http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/sh...cat=all&page=1

(That's not a sarcastic stab at you BTW, just a comment)

The second comment has instructions for a driver; since the chipset is the same (despite it not being on an ASUS mainboard) it should probably work, also the person who posted it uses Slackware.

This forum keeps an HCL (Hardware Compatibility List) so people can check what hardware is compatible with Linux or how to make it compatible.

Hi michaelsanford,

Thanks again for your input! Thanks very much for the link you found with google. I couldn't find anything helpfull like your link!

Will try it out soon and post the results here.

Thanks for all the effort so far! It's really appriciated!!

Robbert

Good luck, do let us know how it turns out. You might even want to post another review on the HCL (at that link above).

Well I was finally able to get the drivers compiled but still the same 3com driver is beeing used. I now also found out that through FTP I get much faster transfer rates.

367.263.744bytes/17,56(s)/20.888,36Kbps
[i] Transfered 1 file(s) - Total: 367.263.744 byte(s) in 17,56 (20.888,36 KBps)

Still when copying the same file with samba, it takes 5 minutes! So I guess it's not "just" a driver problem...

I'm still searching the net about this but any input is welcome of course!



Robbert Jan

After browsing for hours and trying out several solution, I finally found by accident a way to get the transfer speeds up to normal. Though it doesn't make any sense to me so maybe someone can clear me out with this...

By simply using 'tcpdump' (and exit) the transfer rates go up from less then 10kb/s to 20mb/s!