Slow Wired LAN performance (WAN is good)

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crschil

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Jan 30, 2012
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I don't have a strong networking background, specifically in troubleshooting abnormal problems. When things go as expected, I am usually ok (who isn't, i guess?), but I have a difficult time isolating causing of unexpected problems, so I'm hoping someone better than I can offer some suggestions to isolate and resolve my problem.

I just built a new PC, and it is running great now except for 1 problem. Any time I try to connect to it over LAN, the connection is absurdly slow, however the WAN speed is as good as any other machine in the house. I have not done any speed tests, I'm just basing it on observational experimentation

I have 3 laptops and 1 desktop client all running various x64 editions of Windows 7 (2 pro, 2 ultimate). 1 pro and 1 ultimate are wired, 1 pro and 1 ultimate are wireless. The desktop client is the brand new one and the only one i have an issue with.

Laptop #1 (Win7 Pro - wired) and Laptop #2 (Win7 Pro - wireless) routinely transfer data back and forth, either via a remote desktop session or Windows 7 Homegroup, and have never had a problem, aside from an occasional dropped RDP session which always reconnects quickly. Data always transfers quickly and I can stream video via the Homegroup without problem.

Laptop #3 (Win7 Ultimate - wireless) rarely connects to anything on LAN and is mostly used for web and email, but the few times I have done anything over LAN, I recall it transferring ok.

Desktop #1 (Win7 Ultimate - wired) has no problem downloading over WAN since it was built a couple of weeks ago. I downloaded several large video files (100MB+) from my backup server just today without problem and all with fast transfer speeds, but anytime I try to connect to it locally (RDP or Homegroup or just browsing the Network), the speed reminds me of dial-up days.

Does anyone have any ideas of what I should be looking at first? Or maybe just suggestions on how best to troubleshoot the bottleneck?
 
I'm not any closer to a solution, but I just did a LAN speed test using LAN Speed Test and I found that from Laptop #2 to Desktop #1 (which is the problem computer), the write speed is good (680 Mbps), but the read speed is awful (0.135Mbps).
 
Maybe bad ethernet cable? Have you tried using the same cable on another device? Perhaps a bad port somewhere or just your nic. I would just do things just to narrow your problem down.
 
I have tried a new cable and I thought it worked, but the problem returned several hours later.

Just last night, I found that when I reboot the PC, performance is good. I am able to get a RDP session working well, and I can stream media from the HTPC without a problem. But if the machine sits idle for several hours, the reading problems from that machine return. But once I reboot everything is fine again.
 
do you use sleep?
if so, try a fresh reboot and see if issue persists.

on my old XP machine running an old Athlon XP3200+, network performance goes to absolute crap after waking the machine from sleep or hibernate. Reboot clears the problem until it sleeps or hibernates again.
 
crschil said:
I have tried a new cable and I thought it worked, but the problem returned several hours later.

Just last night, I found that when I reboot the PC, performance is good. I am able to get a RDP session working well, and I can stream media from the HTPC without a problem. But if the machine sits idle for several hours, the reading problems from that machine return. But once I reboot everything is fine again.
Click to expand...

Have you tried updating the NIC driver?
 
try disabling the Antivirus (COMPLETELY)

Sometimes the AV module goes crazy and screws things up
 
j-sta said:
do you use sleep?
if so, try a fresh reboot and see if issue persists.

on my old XP machine running an old Athlon XP3200+, network performance goes to absolute crap after waking the machine from sleep or hibernate. Reboot clears the problem until it sleeps or hibernates again.
Click to expand...

I do use sleep, but there does not appear to be a pattern between waking from sleep and the poor performance.
 
Mackintire said:
try disabling the Antivirus (COMPLETELY)

Sometimes the AV module goes crazy and screws things up
Click to expand...

Thanks, I haven't tried that. I will give it a try but it is the same antivirus as the other systems in the house.
 
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