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Date:      Mon, 5 Nov 2001 00:55:05 -0800
From:      "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com>
To:        "Mike Roest" <bsd-lists@blahz.ab.ca>, <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   RE: Problem with 100mbit lan running <16KB/sec file xfers
Message-ID:  <003801c165d7$90298a20$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>
In-Reply-To: <000801c16548$18cd8f60$1e5d4018@zeus>

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>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
>[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Mike Roest
>Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2001 7:48 AM
>To: 'Ted Mittelstaedt'; freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
>Subject: RE: Problem with 100mbit lan running <16KB/sec file xfers
>
>
>
>Ted I'm going to have to disagree with you on one thing.  Full Duplex
>does not mean that he should be getting 200 Mbit/sec transfer rates.
>Full duplex indicates that the card can send and receive at the same
>time where Half Duplex only allows sending or receiving at one time.  So
>the card could be downloading at 100 Mbit/sec and uploading at the same
>time at 100 Mbit.  So the download speed he is getting for the Windoze
>boxes is correct.

Whoops!  Your absolutely correct, my mistake there!

To correctly test the actual throughput speed of the Windows boxes
as you point out he needs to run data in both directions.  He can do
it by initiating GET transfers on both Windows systems to each other,
or by running a GET in one window and a PUT in another.

Under half-duplex with both transfers going his observed throughput
will drop to 5-6Mbt, under full-duplex the transfers should both go at
the 10-12Mbt rate.

> I do agree with everything else you said though.

Thanks, frankly if I was in his shoes with his hardware I'd immediately
test with a different hub before doing anything, even the software hacks.  But
that is because I've seen duplex problems on Ethernet nets before
and there's always 2 characteristics. First is extremely low throughput, and
second there's always cheap NICs or hubs somewhere in the mix (or both)

In fact, it was I that submitted the paragraph:

-------------------------
Q: I'm doing an FTP install and the installation program detects and
   let's me configure my Realtek-based network adapter card, but once the
   system starts FTPing files over it does so extremely slowly.  (like on
   the order of 3K per second)
A: The RealTek 8139 and the 8129 10/100 Fast Ethernet cards use the
   NWAY protocol to autodetect what speed and duplex setting that the hub
   that the PC is plugged into will support.  Unfortunately older
   Ethernet hubs that are 10BaseT only don't support this, and in the
   absense of NWAY negotiation the card will pick 10BaseT full-duplex,
   instead of 10BaseT half-duplex.  To fix this, the "media 10baseT/UTP"
   option should be entered into the options area when the network
   adapter is configured in sysinstall.
--------------------------------

in the TROUBLE.TXT that was in the root of 4.2RELEASE and 4.3RELEASE.
That section and file disappeared in 4.4RELEASE when TROUBLE.TXT was merged
into INSTALL.TXT.  I don't know why - perhaps the rl driver author figured he
had the problem fixed?  Unfortunately though, the advice is still applicable
to other NICs as we see here.


Ted Mittelstaedt                                   tedm@toybox.placo.com
Author of:                       The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide
Book website:                      http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com



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