Unfortunately no one can be told what fun_plug is - you have to see it for yourself.
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Hi,
I have a DNS323 hooked up to a Wireless-G router, and my PC (XP) network card is a Realtek Gigabit card. Copying files to the DNS is slow, ~ 1Mbps. Both connected to router using LAN cables. Is this normal speed or is something wrong (eg bad cables or settings).
I also have a Dell XPS notebook (Vista) connected using wifi, copying between PC & notebook and notebook & DNS is also around 1Mbps
Can I make things go faster by getting a Wireless-N router?
Thanks
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bump
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First - let's make sure we're on the same page - are you speaking in megabits per second, or megabytes per second? Either way, 1 mbps is slow, if, its 1 megabyte/sec it's slow, but if it's 1 megabit/sec it's ridiculously slow.
The speed you see is determined by several things, and the network connection speed is only one of them - the size of the files, the speed of the disks (both the one you're reading from and the one you're writing to) the level of fragmentation, and to a certain extent the operating systems in use all make a difference. You've only described your network, so there's a lot of detail that we don't have, that could explain the low speeds you're getting.
One thing to note is that wireless speeds are always going to be lower than wired - wireless-g is going to give you perhaps 2~3 MB/s (megabytes/sec) maximum, I doubt that you'll see more than perhaps 10 MB/sec with wireless-n and that would be under optimum conditions, so expect less, possibly a lot less. Also switching to a wireless-n router will not necessarily improve wired throughput, unless it has a gigabit switch, some do, some don't.
One last thing - it's been my experience that the Realtek gigabit chipsets (specifically the RTL8169/8110 family) have abysmally low throughput, especially when used with Windows native drivers, it's a little bit better with the Realtek drives, but I am definitely not impressed with the performance.
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Thanks for the reply, the speeds were MB/s, bytes.
I have 2 NIC on my PC (xp), integrated Realtek RTL8168/8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet and an old Intel 8255x-based PCI Ethernet Adapter 10/100 (I get ~1MB/s with both)
The NIC on my laptop (vista) is Broadcom NetLink Fast Ethernet. The Laptop is a Dell XPS bought last year.
And of course I have my DNS-323, copying between all 3 of these is about 1MB/s.
The switch is an Aztech DSL605EW, it's a modem + switch combo, Wireless G and 4 physical ports
I use cat 5e cables to connect the PC and DNS, and wireless for the laptop.
fragmentations shouldn't be a problem, I just formatted my pc and hardly use my laptop. I tested downloading a 150MB file.
I got a feeling the weakest link is my switch, but it would be a waste if I buy the Wireless N and still get the same slow speeds.
Last edited by tpglemur (2009-03-29 20:05:48)
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tpglemur wrote:
I got a feeling the weakest link is my switch, but it would be a waste if I buy the Wireless N and still get the same slow speeds.
1MB/s is terrible. If you suspect that the switch is the problem, by definition you have to remove it from your experiment to confirm your theory. Why do you need to buy a Wireless N product if you are interested in only replacing the switch? A decent gigabit switch can be purchased for $20-$30, sometimes even cheaper.
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Actually it's a all in one device, I don't really know what is the correct term since I've seen people use all sort of term to call it: hub, router, switch.
It a modem + router with 4 physical port and wireless. I basically got this to reduce the amount of plugs and wires
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tpglemur wrote:
Actually it's a all in one device, I don't really know what is the correct term since I've seen people use all sort of term to call it: hub, router, switch.
It's a modem + router + wireless AP + wired switch. That's all fine if you want to use it to reduce hardware clutter, but if you suspect it to be the problem, again by definition you need to take it out of the equation to prove your suspicion. The easiest way to do so is to buy a $25 gigabit switch, connect the switch to the router, and connect every wired device to the new switch. That way, communications between these wired devices do not go through the router anymore.
A cheaper way to eliminate the router is to connect one of the wired gigabit PC directly to the DNS-323 using an Ethernet cable. You have to manually set up an network (IP, etc) that way, but that eliminates the need for the switch for your test.
I still vouch for the switch though.
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Thanks for the feedback.
Well I didn't use the DNS (afraid if something goes wrong there won't be any interface to reset the IP), but I did try between my pc and laptop, copying stuff from Realtek Gigabit to Broadcom via Etherent with fixed IPs gave me 11MB/s
Switching back to the switch gave me 1MB/s, regardless when I used wired or wireless connection on my laptop. Resetting the modem+switch back to default settings didn't improve on the speeds.
I guess next step is to get a switch.
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I bought a Belkin N+ Wireless Modem Router, I get around 7.5MB/s on wireless with WAP/WAP2, and around 11.5MB/s when wired. The Aztech DSL605EW sucks, but I guess you get what you paid for.
Thanks for those who helped.
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Ok, just gonna say this, incase someone reads my comments and buy a Belkin, it sucks. Although network speed is fast, it periodically resets itself when there is too many connections, which is likely to happen when torrenting. A quick google shows that Belkin products had this problem since 2005, so I'm not optimistic of a firmware fix.
I never had the problem with the Aztech, worked like a dream aside from the network speed, but it's not a gigabit switch so I can't blame the product.
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