FreeBSD 5.3 Networking performance problem

[Andrew Seguin]

Deep thanks to both of you have replied to date, showing me the poor quality
of the Realtec chipset (which btw, was on a D-Link card?).

Today, once back on campus, I have tested with the one functional card I
could find of different chipset (some no-brand-name card that comes up as
'dc' under FreeBSD).

The results were still very poor even though it seems the box did not drop
any packets. Ping times were quite variable, from 2 to 2126ms, with the
firewall in place, quite stable without (1-2ms). I show below the results of
"netstat -i" and the pings from a separate pc while the firewall was in
position.

I investigated the possibility of the cable being poor quality... but I have
only one cross-over and otherwise it seems fine. The other cable seemed to
be working as well.

I'm therefore going to order as soon as possible some new nic cards and
cables. 

When I have something new, I'll let you know of the developments, in the
mean time, sincere thanks for the tips!

Andrew


===========================
Results from "netstat -i":
nic	Ipkts	Ierr	Opkts	Oerr
sis0	6757	140	3328	0
# Note: facing internet.

dc0	3728	32	6569	0
# Note: facing network.

===========================
Results from ping, separate PC on network, while firewall in place.
...
Reply from xxx.yyy.zzz.1: bytes=32 time=272ms TTL=255
Reply from xxx.yyy.zzz.1: bytes=32 time=2052ms TTL=255
Reply from xxx.yyy.zzz.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=255
Reply from xxx.yyy.zzz.1: bytes=32 time=831ms TTL=255
Reply from xxx.yyy.zzz.1: bytes=32 time=2126ms TTL=255
Reply from xxx.yyy.zzz.1: bytes=32 time=51ms TTL=255
Reply from xxx.yyy.zzz.1: bytes=32 time=1370ms TTL=255
Reply from xxx.yyy.zzz.1: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=255
...