[K12OSN] 1.4 mbps on 100BaseT! (OT)

[David Trask]

carl at snarlnet.com on Monday, November 1, 2004 at 8:31 PM +0000 wrote:
>Hi Folks,
>
>I know this specific example is OT, but this topic is very near and dear
>to
>K12LTSP since the whole franchise is riding on the network.  Maybe someone
>can set me straight on some network issues I've been having.
>
>I just clocked a Samba upload to my K12LTSP server at 1.45 MegaBits per
>second.  Roughly 109 Megabytes took roughly 11 minutes.  (maybe I'm doing
>the math wrong, but that seems really slow.)  Connections are solid and
>reliable, but slow.
>
>I'm going through 2 switches (not hubs) the lights for all the connections
>indicate 100BaseT connections.  And both computer and server have 10/100
>cards.  Some of the cabling I pulled through the wall myself and there are
>quite a few kinks in it, as I recall.  Also, the ends were untwisted about
>an inch, not the half inch recommended in the specs.  Could this be enough
>to cause such a massive drop in speed?  Should I pull the cat5 again,
>being
>more careful?  Or should I look for the culprit somewhere else?  (CPU,
>RAM,
>interference, disk speed, etc.)  Can someone identify for me the top 5
>likely candidates for bottlenecks in a transfer like this?  I'm worried
>also
>because my K12LTSP connections to the server are from the same cabling
>job.
>
>Thanks,
>
>ck

My top 5

1. a loop in the network...something plugged in wrong and generating a
crapload of traffice
2. crappy switches  sometimes simply cycling the power on all switches and
servers can help.
3. bad cables
4.  bad or incorrectly set up card
5. ummmm....start over?  :-)

David N. Trask
Technology Teacher/Coordinator
Vassalboro Community School
dtrask at vcs.u52.k12.me.us
(207)923-3100