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Network Performance Issue

post #1 of 4
10/13/04 at 3:56pm
Thread Starter 
Hi!

I just re-installed WindowsXP because I wanted to switch from RAID 1 to RAID 0.

Before the change-over, the network connection flew, now it's sooooo slow. It runs at 2.5% (yes that's two - point - five percent ) on a 100Mbs connection. I changed back over to a RAID 1 configuration, speed went back up to normal. I reinstalled back to RAID 0, and the speed tanked again.

Any ideas on what the cause of this problem is?

Sager 8890 - P4 2.6HT - 2x60G HD RAID 1 - 16" display
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post #2 of 4
10/13/04 at 5:27pm
The smart-ass answer is: RAID 0 is causing it...

But you knew that. Is the RAID a software (i.e. windows dynamic drive) or hardware (i.e. controller card/chip)?

Also, is your XP with SP2 rolled in? Or is this SP1 or earlier?

-myrkat
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post #3 of 4
10/19/04 at 1:27pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the reply!

I've got the Sager 8890, so the RAID is hardware based (Promise FastTrack), not a windows dynamic driver. I've tried XP with SP1 from the original CD, then I added SP2, same results.

Sager was nice enough to give me an RMA# while I tried to figure it out on my own. Incidentally, my warentee ran out the day after the RMA was given to me!

Here's an interesting note: When I ran the Drive Fitness Test from Hitachi, it said that my drives(Toshiba MK6022GAX - 5400RPM 60GB) had 0MB of cache each . They should have 16MB of cache each ! Maybe that's a problem with the Hitachi software.

Is there somewhere else that I can check the available cache of my HD's? Maybe the lack of cache is causing the problem with the network performance? Maybe I should test the network with a character server (port 7) and just telnet to it to get a port speed?

Ideas?

Thanks!
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post #4 of 4
10/20/04 at 12:12pm
Thread Starter 
Strange thing yesterday... I went out to buy a 10/100Mb Linksys USB 2.0 NIC for my Tivo, and for the heck of it, tried it in the Sager 8890. With the built-in NIC disabled, the USB NIC also performed at 2.5% max on a 100Mb link.

Suddenly, I received an XP blue screen with IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. Not good. I rebooted and received another blue screen after 10 minutes of online activity, this time with a different error. I'll look it up when I get home if anyone wants to know what it was.

So, I rebooted again, this time without the USB NIC and used the built-in NIC. I noticed that the network was extremely responsive, so I tested the speed, and !VOILA! 85% util on a 100Mb link!

Huh? What? How?

Well, at least the network performance is back.

BTW - tested the speed with Hard Drive Tach - 108MB/s max burst, 65MB/s descending to 45MB/s sustained read on the RAID 0 stripe !
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