Author Topic: Speedtest - broadband speed  (Read 9422 times)

Einar Lygre

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Speedtest - broadband speed
« on: February 13, 2017, 11:37:32 am »
I just upgraded  my fiber into my house. The speed was 50/50 Mbps, but after the upgrade it should be 300/300 Mbps. When I run a speed test program it shows about 95/95 under eCS, but 300/300 under Win10. Same PC.
What or where is the weak point under eCS?

Dave Yeo

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Re: Speedtest - broadband speed
« Reply #1 on: February 13, 2017, 06:05:33 pm »
What is your hardware? In particular your network card?

Neil Waldhauer

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Re: Speedtest - broadband speed
« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2017, 05:15:18 am »
Try transferring some files. The weak point could be the speed test program.
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Einar Lygre

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Re: Speedtest - broadband speed
« Reply #3 on: February 14, 2017, 11:31:37 am »
The network card:  Realtek PCIe GBE Familie Controller  1 Gbps.

For the download speed test I use FAST.COM both in eCS and WIN. There are many speedtest solutions that can be run in the browser. All of them give me the same result. I don't have any standalone program for this.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2017, 03:13:17 pm by Einar Lygre »

Dave Yeo

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Re: Speedtest - broadband speed
« Reply #4 on: February 14, 2017, 05:31:11 pm »
There's been reports of bad performance with Reaktek cards/drivers. Seems Realtek uses the host CPU for more functionality then other network cards/drivers.

Doug Bissett

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Re: Speedtest - broadband speed
« Reply #5 on: February 14, 2017, 08:15:29 pm »
There's been reports of bad performance with Reaktek cards/drivers. Seems Realtek uses the host CPU for more functionality then other network cards/drivers.

There are a number things at play here. One is that there are many 1 Gbs Realtek chips (at least 7, that I know about, but I am sure there are more). Some work better than others (they are used, only because they are cheap). There are also about 4 OS/2 drivers, that I know about. The only one that should be used, is the latest Multimac MMRE driver, from the Arca Noae driver pack. Most of the time, the Multimac R8169 driver will work, but not always. The Multimac R8168 driver can do some nasty things, and the old rtgnda13 driver isn't complete (but it may work, when nothing else does).

Then, there is a problem, in OS/2, where the indicated speed is always 100 Mbs, when it should be 1 Gbs. Some programs seem to follow that, and throttle to 100 Mbs, while others seem to ignore it, and will go as fast as possible (which is always below 1 Gbs). It is a known problem, with no solution, yet (that I know about). This may actually be what causes the test to be slower in OS/2. In real life, you will probably see the same speed on downloads and uploads as windows does, as long as the program ignores the 100 Mbs speed limit.

I am not 100% sure, but it appears that the UDP protocol is very slow in OS/2, while the TCP protocol is actually faster than what windows will do. It is possible that the test is using the UDP protocol. It is also obvious, that windows is far more aggressive at taking it's turn at using the network, and that may have something to do with it too.

Okay, that covers the speed test, but in real life, I have found that most internet sites throttle their speeds to about 300 KB/s (or about 3 Mbs), so most of the time, you will see that, when you are surfing the net.

walking_x

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Re: Speedtest - broadband speed
« Reply #6 on: February 16, 2017, 01:01:38 pm »
It depends on many factors. I never saw more, than 55Mb/sec (440Mbs) in both systems. Often - OS/2 to OS/2 works much better, than OS/2 with Windows. May be some Netbios settings should be adjusted?

Sometimes OS/2 drivers even better (and faster), than Windows: Veit`s 8139, new Intel (e1000e) driver.

In addition, Realtek is really slow, up to 360Mbs (in Windows too), I never saw more, even on NETBEUI transfer which is a bit faster.

440Mbs i got on Intel<->Marvell connection, between OS/2 & Windows, on NETBEUI. Marvell driver is also fine, but it is hard to find it now (after DLink replaced Marvell to Realtek in later DGE-530 revisions).

Ok, this is all about network with simplest DLink home switches.

Einar Lygre

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Re: Speedtest - broadband speed
« Reply #7 on: February 16, 2017, 04:34:31 pm »
It does not matter whether the speed is 50 Mbps or 300 Mbps for my download in eCS. The high speed is for other use. But strange to see the difference between eCS and Win10.

Now I found another speed test program (beta.speedtest.net) that gave the expected result: >300 Mbps download and >250 Mbps upload under eCS.  As Neil said, the weak point could be the test program. But many other programs gave the same result: <100 Mbps download for eCS and about 300 Mbps for Win.
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