[SOLVED] Slow network - driver problem?

[DusanBolek]

For some time I had problem with extremely slow Unraid, transfer rates were for some time only around 1 MBps. Was not sure what is causing it so decided to upgrade to version 6 to see if the problem will persist. The problem is the same, but the new Unraid interface with more information actually provided an interesting clue. The clue is "eth0 : 10Mb/s - full duplex", which actually corresponds well with experienced transfer rates. This problem appeared after I upgraded to higher subversion of version 5 so it seems to me it might be a driver problem when onboard network card is no longer fully supported by new kernel and reverts to basic Ethernet transfer speed.

Mainboard of the system is GA-MA790XT-UD4P with Realtek 8111C/DL chip (10/100/1000 Mbit).

 

Any advice?

 

D.

 

[itimpi]

For some time I had problem with extremely slow Unraid, transfer rates were for some time only around 1 MBps. Was not sure what is causing it so decided to upgrade to version 6 to see if the problem will persist. The problem is the same, but the new Unraid interface with more information actually provided an interesting clue. The clue is "eth0 : 10Mb/s - full duplex", which actually corresponds well with experienced transfer rates. This problem appeared after I upgraded to higher subversion of version 5 so it seems to me it might be a driver problem when onboard network card is no longer fully supported by new kernel and reverts to basic Ethernet transfer speed.

Mainboard of the system is GA-MA790XT-UD4P with Realtek 8111C/DL chip (10/100/1000 Mbit).

 

Any advice?

 

D.

This is much more likely to be hardware issue than a software issue.  A Likely cause is a cabling issue or a port issue on your router.  If you have an Ethernet cable that does not have all cores connected, then the link will degrade to a lower speed.  This can be confusing as the connection still appears to be working - just not at the expected speed.  There have been a lot of users encountering incorrect/defective cabling limiting the speed.  Less common is the case where a particular port on the router starts playing up and limiting the speed but it does happen.

 

You should therefore try using different Ethernet cables and/or ports on your router.

[DusanBolek]

I thought as such so I moved my UNRAID server from my server room to a living room and connected it to my home network using the same cable and network socket as HTPC uses and it still does only 10Mbps Ethernet. Plugged to the very same socket with the very same cable, my HTPC does about 70 MBps transfer rates. Strange is that sometimes UNRAID server connects to my network using Giga Ethernet and sometimes doesn't. The only reason I came up so far is failing internal network card.

 

D.

[Frank1940]

I thought as such so I moved my UNRAID server from my server room to a living room and connected it to my home network using the same cable and network socket as HTPC uses and it still does only 10Mbps Ethernet. Plugged to the very same socket with the very same cable, my HTPC does about 70 MBps transfer rates. Strange is that sometimes UNRAID server connects to my network using Giga Ethernet and sometimes doesn't. The only reason I came up so far is failing internal network card.

 

D.

 

Look at your motherboard manual.  It might tell you what the LED colors mean on the Network socket indicate.  It is possible that the on-board NIC has failed but not really likely.  How long is the cable run to the switch/router?  If it is long, it could still be a cable issue.  Cat6 cable has a great 'reach' than Cat5E which in turn has a greater 'reach' than Cat5.  It could be that you HTPC has a slightly better receiver/transmitter than your server and that might be the reason for the fallback. 

 

If you do find that you want to try another Network Card, most people here will recommend one of the Intel cards.  They cost around $30US.  By the way, if you do install one, you have to turn off the on-board NIC in the BIOS and unRAID will not recognize the new card!

 

EDIT:  you might have a good look at the Cable Socket on the motherboard and mke sure there is no dirt or bent pins.  GB connection rate requires most of the pins to be active and 10Mb only needs four pins.  So if something is preventing a solid connection of all the pins to the cable, you can have exactly the problem you are experiencing.

[DusanBolek]

Hard to say what is causing the problem. It is always difficult to diagnose such recurring intermittent problems. I made no changes, simply put the server back to the server room and during last five reboots there it successfully connected using gigabit Ethernet even though the whole wiring configuration there is exactly the same. Good thing is that instead of having rather vague "Unraid slow" problem, I know now that the problem is in network connectivity. That narrows the problem a lot and enables me to more closely watch this problem in the future.

 

BTW: Length of the cable can't be a problem as my whole flat is wired using Cat6 cables and especially in the server room the length of the cable is something like fifty centimeters.

 

D.

[DusanBolek]

It is getting more and more confusing. It worked for about a week with Gigabit Ethernet, but then it for whatever reason reverted back to 10 Mbit Ethernet. Tried to force higher speeds using ethtool and mii-tool, but without success. When I try to force anything above 10 Mbit speed the network connection goes down. Tried changing cable, router port, very short cable, nothing helps. Several other computers connecting 1000 Mbit speeds no issues at all. :-(

[DusanBolek]

[it is possible that the on-board NIC has failed but not really likely. ...If you do find that you want to try another Network Card, most people here will recommend one of the Intel cards.  They cost around $30US.  By the way, if you do install one, you have to turn off the on-board NIC in the BIOS and unRAID will not recognize the new card!

 

At the end I found one gigabyte Ethernet NIC from Intel in my collection of old computer garbage so I switched to it and now everything is working OK. Not sure if the problem was HW or SW one, but definitely the root of the problem was internal NIC vs. Unraid. Well, I don't mind using external NIC instead of internal one so the problem is solved.