interesting variation in network speeds of PCs on a LAN

bwanaaa

Senior member
Dec 26, 2002
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Two PCs are on a network connected through a 10/100 switch

PC1: P3 850 mhz, 256 ram, pata ibm 120 gig 7200 rpm hd, win2kpro, cnet 200 mbs full duplex pci lan card
PC2: P4 3 ghz, 1 gig ram, sata RAID 36 gig raptors, winXPPro, ABIT IS7 integrated LAN chip

When data is going from the fast machine to the slow machine:
PC2 pushes a file to the slower machine: 75% network utilization (fastest transfer)
PC1 pulls a file from the faster machine: 70%

When data is going from the slow machine to the fast machine
PC2 pulls a file from the slower machine: 65%
PC1 pushes a file to the faster machine: 60% network utilization (slowest)


The results are identical when the network cables are switched (ie no cable defects)
TCP optimizer has been used to set
PC1(slow box) MTU1492 RWIN 255552
PC2(fast box) MTU 1500 RWIN 256960

Can someone explain the differences?