suffering from poor network performance...

[Bill Vermillion]

On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 17:58 , while impersonating an expert on 
the internet, Alex sent this to stdout:

> First, I know very little about networking, especially
> performance turning. I would really like to learn more but don't
> know where/how to start effectively.

> I have a small home network with a PowerBook G4 and FBSD
> 4.9-STABLE connected through a Netgear DS108 hub (10/100). The
> FBSD box is a dual Xeon 500MHz with Intel Etherexpress 100/Pro
> (MS440GX motherboard). If for some reason it makes a difference,
> there is an RT311 router connected to the hub as well. This is
> the router through which these machines see the internet. There
> are other machines connected to the network. However, they are
> currently turned off.

> In my limited knowledge I'm using ping from each host to the
> other. From the FBSD system to the G4 system, I'm getting nearly
> 60% packet loss and about 20% in the other direction. I'm ready
> to use tcpdump but I'm not sure how I would. How can/should I go
> about improving network performance?

I've not tried the ping but I'm seeing exceptionally poor
performance on G4s to FreeBSD.  The G4's can ftp to each other 
at about 8-9MB/sec, as can the FreeBSDs.  They are on a Cisco
2948 switch.  But ftp from BSD to G4 is in the order of 20-40KB/sec
while G4 to FreeBSD is about 1/2 that.

This was first noted by a client who has a G4 in our rack and have
a very large flash file on their front page.  I've also heard
annecdotal reports of slow G4 to MS machines too.

But not everyone has this and I can't seem to find an answer.

And I have NO problems with pings. Just data transfer.

One G4 runs high load as shown under very little CPU available
under top, while the other is far less stressed.

Bill


-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com