Topic: Very Slow Network performance ...

[Patrick Fortin-Ducharme]

I have a IBM Netfinity 3000, this server have a Intel 10/100 Onboard Ethernet NIC.  With E-Smith, I can only got 1200k/sec from this card (in FTP Transfert.  To test, i use big files like ISO file - 500 Mb).  When I was on Win2000, I was able to got 9000k/sec from the same card.  I use a Linksys BEFSR41 10/100 Switch.  I know the port on the switch is ok, because if I plug another system in it, it's ok and Fly at 9000k/sec.  Maybe E-Smith is not using the good Ethernet driver for my card ?  

How can I solve my problem.

Thank you !

Patrick FD

[Patrick Fortin-Ducharme]

I forgot to mention that i'm using SME v5.1.2.

[Nathan Fowler]

Looks like your operating in 10Mbit mode.  For your test, were both machines 100Mbit?  Did they have 100Mbit NICs?  Does your LinkSys switch say that the E-Smith node is in 10 or 100Mbit mode?

Hope this helped,
Nathan

[Julien]

Fortin-Ducharme wrote:
>
> I have a IBM Netfinity 3000, this server have a Intel 10/100
> Onboard Ethernet NIC.  With E-Smith, I can only got 1200k/sec
> from this card (in FTP Transfert.  To test, i use big files
> like ISO file - 500 Mb).  When I was on Win2000, I was able
> to got 9000k/sec from the same card.  I use a Linksys BEFSR41
> 10/100 Switch.  I know the port on the switch is ok, because
> if I plug another system in it, it's ok and Fly at
> 9000k/sec.  Maybe E-Smith is not using the good Ethernet
> driver for my card ?

Hi

did you check about Darell May's hdparm ? it enables high speed dma access on your IDE HD ; of course, if scsi...

--> http://myezserver.com/downloads/mitel/howto/hdparm-howto.html

hope it may help you
Julien

[Charlie Brady]

Julien wrote:

> did you check about Darell May's hdparm ? it enables high
> speed dma access on your IDE HD ; of course, if scsi...

Just a minor point. That's not Darrell's hdparm. It's Mitel's hdparm software. Darrell put together the HOWTO, using information provided to him by Mitel.

Regards

Charlie

[Nathan Fowler]

In this case I don't think HDParm will help, if he is capping out at 1200Kb/sec, 1200Kb/sec is the maximum throughput of 10Mbit:

(10Mbit * 10^6)/8/1024 = About 1200Kb/sec  (1220Kb/sec)

However, Julien, thanks for your input.  Any advice is always appreciated.

Thanks,
Nathan

[Bill]

If all fails, disable the on-board NIC in bios and install a 3COM 3c905 card. My 3Com is running at 100 Mbits.

[Charlie Brady]

Bill wrote:
 
> If all fails, disable the on-board NIC in bios and install a
> 3COM 3c905 card. My 3Com is running at 100 Mbits.

"all" should include attempting to force the driver to use 100Mbits instead of negotiating. Unfortunately there is no standard across different drivers for how to do this. For an eepro100 driver, for instance, you would add this line to /etc/modules.conf, then reboot:

options eepro100 options=32

Charlie

[Patrick Fortin-Ducharme]

FYI, My linksys Switch tell me that the Linux NIC is in 100 Mode.  I will try the HDParm and the option = 32.  I will then know what's wrong.

Thank you.

I'll tell you more after my 2 tests.

[serge]

Not sure what to make with Nathan's calculations:

I always thought that 10 megabits per second and 100 megabits per second were speeds allocated to NICs for 10Base and 100Base speeds.  Nathan makes it as it was calculated in megabytes!

From what I know, 10 megabits per second or 10 Mbs gives ou a maximum throughput of 10 X 10 ^ 6. In fact, even if there are nothing else plugged in that use bandwidth, you never actually get close to the maximum...  To my experience.

Or am I completely wrong in thinking that a 10Base NIC means megaBITS???

Please correct or confirm me.

Serge

[Andy Berry]

Did that make a difference, Patrick?
I always have troubles (corruption) when using hdparm, but still have poor network performance.

-A