crazy Win 7 LAN problem, extremely slow

[zephxiii]

I'll try to make this as condensed as I can.

With the original setup, everything worked fine.

What has changed:
Installed a Thinkpad T43 (temp. till an R31 gets here) to run pfsense (router/firewall on FreeBSD) behind an Actiontech Router (from FiOS install and I have to keep this because of the coax interface) with the DMZ set to the wan NIC of the Thinkpad.

I also moved a Dell Powerconnect 2016 16 port 10/100 switch that had been use on the 2nd floor down to the basement where it connects to the LAN nic of the thinkpad for distribution.

Everything is working great, the traffic shaping is super, ports all nice and forwarded to the server. Internet is running at normal speed, and so are transfers across the LAN....

Except for one machine, the HTPC. It connects and I can ping stuff on the lan and internet as well as resolve names, but the actual data connectivity is so slow that it can't even load webpages. I can't connect to any other machines either...its like data traffic is just not happening.

So far i've installed a different NIC and i get the same result. I've plugged that cable into my other Thinkpad and i could rock 11MB/s no problem. I plugged the cable back into the actiontech and it would work without any issue.

Its like some weird problem between 7 and that switch. I'm going to try plugging in another switch into that switch and run the box through it to see if it makes any difference.

But for the time being, any ideas?

 

[Emulex]

disable ipv6 on pc; disable flow control too

 

[zephxiii]

Well the only setting that made any difference was bumping down to 10mbit. I could actually surf the web, but file transfers across the LAN were still dog slow (like 13kB/s).

I did put that smaller switch down in the basement and connecting the HTPC's line to it, but got the same results.

After messing around with some other stuff, I eventually moved that smaller switch up to the HTPC and connected the main line between the small switch and the main switch. Suddenly the connection was normal again and i could hit a solid 11-12MB/s across the LAN to the server....yay.

I guess there is some issue with the line (which is not a long run at all) between the NICs and certain switches for some reason. I'll have to look harder at whether there may be something that is causing interference (though there isn't really anything that would, and there are other lines there that have no problems) or if there is an issue with the end terminations (which look good to the eye).

 

[mancy]

If you are facing the slow connection issue, you can check the reason for the problem. If the connection drop issue is due to your ISP, you can contact your ISP. If you discover any issue from your side, you can check the router and the associated hardware. If you have issues with your Ethernet cables, you can replace them.

 

[zephxiii]

Bought a couple of new gigabit switches and the problem showed up again. Upon closer inspection I found that the cable between the HTPC and switch wasn't terminated properly. Redid the ends and now its working perfectly.