DSM-G600, DNS-3xx and NSA-220 Hack Forum

i know that... but like i mentioned in my post, even with jumbo frames turned on, the router is not dropping any packets... i can access the internet just fine with jumbo frames on... It's just that before the 1.05 323 came about, only my 2 desktops had jumbo frame capable NICs so i've never turned them on since i don't transfer files between them... But even with jumbo frames on, i have always been able to access the internet through the router without any problems... So i don't think it's the router that is the issue...

Also, with jumbo frames turned on, even if my router does not support jumbo frames, i can still access the router config page... on the 323, i get nothing....

Last edited by mihar (2008-05-18 20:46:08)

ithrowpicks - Yes, i can access my router page with Jumbo turned on... Always has... I've also tried changing the MTU on of the router to 7k(the max my NIC supports) but the 323 doesn't want to respond... The router is still happily routing all my packets in the network like nothing happened...

fordem - That's the conclusion i came to... I did research on jumbo frames before the 1.05 came for the 323 and yes, it was controversial... Apparently, different manufacturers had different ideas on how to implement jumbo frames and the fact that there was no standardised format made things worse... Also, you mentioned that you have broadcom and intel NICs that work fine with Jumbo and the 323... I have a laptop that has both chipsets... Broadcom for wireless and Intel for wired... I'll go try enabling jumbo on the laptop and see if that works... if it does, then truly the realteks are the problem... I dunno if it's the 1.05 firmware or not but i'm getting worse performance on my realteks than on the 1.04... i could get speeds of 150mb++ on 1.04 but it seems to have dropped to below 110mb on the 1.05... And this was before jumbo was officially supported on the 323...

Wow, I just found out that they released a new firmware.  I am keen to play with jumbo frames as I recently bought a Prosafe gigabit switch.  With a 5m cat5e I get ~120mbps to the dns-323, hopefully jumbo frames can increase that, although I am not sure if it will work with my internet connected through a netgear 108mbps wireless router?

I will test the new firmware when I get home and enable jumbo frames, let you know how i get on.  Anyone got any ideas how much faster it can go, and also what size jumbo frame to enable?

P.S - my lappie is realtek 8111B, fingers crossed

Last edited by coalfield (2008-05-19 15:59:33)

fordem wrote:

No - jumbo frame will not work over wireless - it's gigabit only

I think 802.11b  supports MTUs up to around 2k (at least some Prism-based NICs did when I tried years ago). Don't know about a/g/n.

802.11b is not the name of some piece of hardware, but the name of the 11 Mbit/s wireless LAN standard:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11

I have 3 Realtek Gbit Ethernet ports on my PC: 2 are based on the RTL8169/8110 chipset, the 3rd one is based on the RTL8168B/8111B.
I also own a D-Link DGS-1005D GBit switch, to which the NAS and the PC are connected.
The Gbit cards can go up to an MTU of 7k, communication works fine.
Unfortunately, the CPU load is quite high with Realtek cards, and this gets even worse when Jumbo frames are enabled. I therefore mostly leave it off.

mihar wrote:

Wow... So that means my NICs are not the problem after all... Looks like the likely culprit is the DGL-4300 router... But if the router completely doesn't support jumbo, i shouldn't be even be able to acess the internet or for that matter my other desktop with jumbo turned on...

No thats wrong. In case you want to access the internet, the MTU Path Discovery safes your ass.

fordem wrote:

BTW, even though you state your router is wireless, it does have 4 or 5 ports for wired connection right? If yes, are those fast ethernet(100mbps) or gigabit ports?

The router I have is a 4 port, and its all 10/100mbps.

To clear up the confusion with some people, I am NOT trying to connect wirelessly at gigabit with jumbo frames.  I always connect with a cate5e (RTL8168B/8111B) to my laptop, hence at gigabit speeds with my DNS-323.

i will keep you posted on the results

oxygen wrote:

mihar wrote:

Wow... So that means my NICs are not the problem after all... Looks like the likely culprit is the DGL-4300 router... But if the router completely doesn't support jumbo, i shouldn't be even be able to acess the internet or for that matter my other desktop with jumbo turned on...

No thats wrong. In case you want to access the internet, the MTU Path Discovery safes your ass.

Maybe that will save my ass too? But what is it?

mihar wrote:

coalfield wrote:

The router I have is a 4 port, and its all 10/100mbps.

To clear up the confusion with some people, I am NOT trying to connect wirelessly at gigabit with jumbo frames.  I always connect with a cate5e (RTL8168B/8111B) to my laptop, hence at gigabit speeds with my DNS-323.

i will keep you posted on the results

How will you achieve gigabit connectivity when your wired ports only go as fast at 100mbps? The 323 will detect that your ports only support 100mbps and will negotiate at 100mbps... So will your laptop... Unless i'm missing something here?

OK I have not explained myself very well it seems....

I have a Netgear GS105UK Gigabit switch (every device including my DNS-323 and laptop with realtek 1GB controller).  Since I need to get online, I connect a Netgear DG834GT to one of the ports.  This happens to be a 10/100mbps switch also, but I dont use it for that, i simply use it to add wireless and modem to my network.

mihar wrote:

Aaahh... Now everything's clearer... lol

BTW, i seem to have sorted out the issues i've been having... Turns out, it was the router... I connected one of my desktops and the 323 to a Dlink DGS1005 switch, turned on jumbo for both and hey presto, it worked... The other desktop connected to the router has no access so the only logical conclusion is that the router was seriously screwing up the jumbo frames...

Now all i have to do is swap the positions of the router and the switch and i'm all set...

Sweet....

So you can still get on the net, even though your router does not support jumbo frames.... will that be the same case for me?

Also what size jumbo you using?  Whats the best?

Whats the CPU usage like, compared to it turned off?

And most of all, what kind of difference does it make to the speed?!

coalfield wrote:

Sweet....

So you can still get on the net, even though your router does not support jumbo frames.... will that be the same case for me?

Also what size jumbo you using?  Whats the best?

Whats the CPU usage like, compared to it turned off?

And most of all, what kind of difference does it make to the speed?!

I have no idea if it will work in your case... When Kylek mentioned that his Realteks were on the same switch with the 323, i figured i'd just give it a try since i own the same equipment(DLink)... But when i first bought the switch, i was told it supported jumbo frames but it had no real impact then as i wasn't using Jumbo till now...

Access to the internet is working or else i wouldn't be able to post here....

I'm currently using the max my NIC supports which is 7k... The 323 is also set to 7K... So far, i have noticed a marked speed increase in transferring files... A 4gb iso transfer to the 323 would average 80mbps but with Jumbo, i got it up to 130mbps constant... I'm gonna try other values and see which one gives more bang for the buck but for now, i'm pretty tired after shifting the positions of my network devices so we'll let it rest...

CPU load has not increased at all... It looks pretty normal to me just like when jumbo wasn't turned on in the first place... I'm surprised you mentioned issues with CPU load with jumbo on... The desktop i'm using is a 7 yr old Dell Pentium 4 2.26 and the cpu load is normal....

blahsome wrote:

To me this is not surprising as switches that don't support jumbo frames (your router's internal switch most definitely does not) often just drop them. Draw a line between your end points here:

Scenario 1: PC -- Router's internal switch -- DNS-323. Since your PC and the DNS-323 both have jumbo frames enabled, they will attempt to talk in that mode. Since the switch doesn't support jumbo frames, frames get dropped, and it won't work.
Scenario 2: PC -- gigabit switch -- DNS-323. Since everybody supports jumbo frames, this case works.
Scenario 3: PC -- router -- WAN. Since WAN is not-jumbo frame enabled, your PC (even with jumbo frames turned on) probably won't talk in jumbo frame mode.
Scenario 4: PC -- Router's internal switch -- Other PC (both have jumbo frames on). Have you tested this scenario? I bet it won't work either.

The switch that i have, the Dlink DGS1005D was touted as supporting Jumbo when i bought it... Of course, the guy selling it to me could be lying since i couldn't find any mention of Jumbo Frame support on the box or in the manuals... But it apparently does considering that i've hooked up my 2 desktops and the 323 to the switch with jumbo turned on and it's working fine now... And the reality is my router the DGL-4300 does not in fact support jumbo... It still does allow internet/WAN connection with Jumbo enable NICs but not within the same network... But that could be due to the MTU Path Discovery mentioned by oxygen in the earlier posts...

As to your scenarios, here are my results:

Scenario 1 : Doesn't work
Scenario 2 : Working
Scenario 3 : Working with Jumbo on/off(That's what set me off on the wrong path earlier. Had the router dropped the packets, i would've immediately figured out that the router was the root cause)
Scenario 4 : Working (both my desktops can talk to each other with jumbo on through the router's internal switch. Again, something which confused me)

Last edited by mihar (2008-05-19 20:36:41)

The DGS1005 may or may not support jumbo frame - I've seen switches that didn't and also did not block communication with both endpoints configured for jumbo frame.

Over the weekend I was fiddling with jumbo frame between my IBM xSeries server and the DNS-323, knowing full well that the Netgear switch in between does not support jumbo (it's a FS728TS - 24 port 100 mbps ports & 4 gigabit ports) - throughput was slightly diminshed when the end points had jumbo frame enabled, but they were able to communicate at all times.

You could try connecting two systems directly to one another with a straight through cable and running oken's benchmark utility with & without jumbo frame enabled and then connect them through the switch and run the utility again - you should be able to tell quite accurately which level or performance the switch delivers.