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Vast different speed difference

L

larciel

Diamond Member
I am very luck to have a very fast cable connection where I get upto 3.5MB/sec d/l from sites like microsoft.com.

I download from a certain foreign website where it uses its own download programs.

Problem is that I get only 400KB/sec on desktop but over 1300KB/sec on my dell laptop (with wired connection)

I've tried everything but can't come up with valid guess but the difference in the ethernet card... so far I've tried

1. Reinstalling 2 machines with vista with same CD.
2. Changing pci-ethernet card on desktop to 3com and other Intel 10/100

I've downloaded same file at almost same time and the speed diff is there.

Can a ethernet card be responsible for this huge difference in speed?

If yes, I'd like to get the pci-ethernet card that has 440x. I can't find broadcom 440x chipset pci-ethernet card anywhere. anybody have a good guess?
 
NICs do vary significantly in design and implementation quality. So do drivers. Put them together, and yes, you can see big performance differences. From what I've seen, Vista performance just sucks in general, and one of the many reasons why is that many vendors' drivers are quick ports that might or might not work well (between XP and Vista, most vendors allocate their engineering effort according to customer base...).

What kind of NIC does your desktop have? A Realtek, perchance?

An Intel gigabit PCI NIC (Pro/1000MT) is about $35 and last I checked they had great drivers. This might be a good solution.

The Broadcom 44xx chipset is a 10/100 NIC chipset that in practice is only for integrated OEM use. I've never seen a discrete board with that chip. It's performance is okay but not great. The Intel 10/100, Intel 10/100/1000, or Broadcom 57xx chips are much better, and these days all can be had for so cheap that there's no sense dealing with lower-speed parts.
 
Well so far I've tried
onboard Intel Gigabit
pci 3com 905c TX
pci Intel 10/100 Pro.

All three of them are trumped by Broadcom 440x on my dell laptop.

I'll see if I can get other broadcom ones.
 
Operating systems of the different machines involved?

The high latency from being a foreign site (can't change the speed of light or path) is most likely showing TCP setting differences or difference in the tcp/ip stack. Packet loss could also affect and exaggerate stack differences.
 
I got 1.5Mb DSL (256kb upload). I see about 1.35 down and 215 up. That's really not so bad considering the line comes 30 miles from here via fiber, then changes into 30 year old copper to run down a mile worth of dirt road.
 
With xp, the speed was same 400KB/sec

I just ordered some broadcom pci-x card, hopefully it'll be the solution!
 
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