How to get Gigabyte speed from network

[TonyA]

Hi all, I have the following set up :

A TP Link 1043ND router connected to a Billion 7402G ADSL Modem/ Router. 2 PCs are hardwired using Cat5e to the TP Link and one Laptop is connected by wireless to the TP Link. The wireless on the Billion has been disconnected. Both PCs have Gigabyte network cards (Broadcomm). The network is working just fine as is internet access. However when I run a lan speed test between the 2 PCs connected via the TP LInk, the max speed I get is 86 MBps. The TP Link has gigabyte lan ports, 300Mbs wireless and a separate wan port via which it is connected to the Billion for internet access.

I feel that the speeds are low and that I sould be getting at lease 800MBps. Can some one comment on speeds and offer advice on how I can increase the speed?

Many Thanks

 

[stricken]

i think you have your gigabits and megabits in a knot....

AAAND... I dont know of anything except direct fiber hookups or a thunderbolt port that can push 800 Megs a second.

Best way to test is to copy a 1 Gigabyte file from one to the other. And see how long it takes. Then work out how many gigabits (remember there are 8 bits in a network byte) you transfer per unit time.

If all else fails... make sure your NIC's are correctly configured in BIOS and OS.

 

[Metalspawn]

86 MBps is good for gigabit
86Mbps is not so good

 

[Totempole]

I'm also thinking you're getting Gigabit and Gigabyte mixed up.
1 Gigabyte = 1024 Megabytes
1 Gigabit = 128 Megabytes

1 Gigabit = 1 Gigabyte divided by 8

CAT5e cable can only transfer data at a maximum speed of
128 Megabyte or 1 Gigabit per second AFAIK.

So if your connection is 1 Gigabit then 86 Megabytes
per second is quite normal, since 128 Megabytes is the theoretical
maximum.

There are loads of reasons why you will never get the full 128MB
speed, but I don't think I need to go into that.

 

[TonyA]

Hi, thanks for responses. I checked again using a program called Lan Speed to transfer a 250 Mb file. The speed was 86Mbps for read and 86Mbps for write. According to Metalspawn this is not good. How do I ensure the 2 PCs connect at Gigabit speeds, both have Gigabit lan cards

 

[HavocXphere]

Go to a PC with Windows 7 or Vista on it. Open Task Manager. Select networking tab. Look for a column labeled "Link speed". 90% sure it'll say 100Mbps there. It should say 1000. The tricky part is that what is reported here isn't necessarily the practical speed you'll get.

One of the connected devices is a 100Mbps device and its causing the TP Link to drop everything down to 100mbps. In this case I think its the billion that is the problem.

To test this, shut down *everything*. Physically disconnect the Billion. Start the TP and the 2x PCs. Do a speed test now. It should run at gigabit speeds now. You should be seeing speeds somewhere around the 320Mbps mark...though this is a very rough guesstimate...at those speed other things start to bottleneck so speed.

If you're still not coming right then connect the PCs directly via crossover cable to test...that way you can confirm the NICs are fine.

Also, I've found that connecting a wireless device sometimes also drops the speed of the wired connections. Its retarded but thats the way it is. Not all devices do this though.

Get rid of the Lan speed program. The numbers its reporting don't sound right (Should be closer to 76Mbps to reflect real world performance). Use something like Teracopy and copy a large file over the LAN. It'll report something around the 10MB/s mark if its a 100mbps link, 40MB/s+ for a gigabit link.

 

[ponder]

1. Create a 1GB ram drive on each machine and copy files from ram drive to ram drive and check the speed you get.
2. Connect both PC's directly to each other (no switch/router) and repeat (1) above and check the speeds again.

You still still don't seem to know the difference between a bit & a Byte.