Networking wizards? Poor gigabit ethernet performance.

[Grall]

I run my national benchmark for broadband speed test on my old PC, it reports almost 280Mbit/s downstream to a test server in my own city - less than 8ms latency - on what my ISP claims to be a 300Mbit/s connection.
(http://www.bredbandskollen.se/)

If I run same test on my new PC, I get a dog's whisker under 66Mbit/s, and this at 3:45AM, so not likely any ISP network contention. Only 1 device is active at a time on my end as well, so no contention here either.

Browser tested with is Google Chrome with Flash plugin disabled and Windows 10 same major version on both PCs.

If I download Steam game (Bioshock Enhanced, full disclosure), Steam client reports speed around 284-288Mbit/s on new PC...

Time of day doesn't matter; I've tried the speed test several times over the course of a couple weeks now, always same result. Doesn't matter which port on my router I use (Apple Time Capsule); speed is the same 65.5-ish Mbit/s on the speed test. Tried three different cables as well. Didn't matter which driver I used on new PC either; Windows default driver, or the Intel driver ASUS supplied me from their support site.

Ran the diagnostic tests Intel supplies in their drivers; passed with flying colors... 100% all green checkmarks. Reports 1Gbit/s full duplex link speed. Cable is 'excellent quality', and so on. No noticeable signal degradation and whatnot.

So why am I getting 66Mbit/s and 280Mbit/s to the same site from two different PCs hooked up to the very same network? This discrepancy doesn't seem to bother Steam, but I'm thinking maybe other sites might also be slowed down by whatever is affecting the broadband speed test page. That wouldn't be good.

Help, anyone...?

 

[Malo]

Have you tried a different browser or a different speed test site?

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Speedtest isn't very reliable anyway, you're completely pendant on the server you're testing with. Here in Japan I can test with Japanese servers and get a couple of Mbps but if I pick a sever in Korea it is always much faster. You might just be testing with a not very good server.

If Steam downloads are fast I don't think there is any issue with your internet connection.

 

[Bludd]

Don't rely on just 1 speed test site.

Try fast.com too for instance. MAybe someone else have links to other services.

 

[Grall]

You might just be testing with a not very good server.

Yes that can be the case sometimes, but here I go from one PC to the next and the difference is immediately over 200Mbit/s. And the servers are good. It's meant as an official internet speed measuring service, run by the ISPs in cooperation with the swedish government...

 

[BRiT]

Any differences in Antivirus programs between the two? I once had Eset Nod32 slowing things down as it was scanning all the http traffic.

 

[Grall]

Any differences in Antivirus programs between the two?

Shouldn't be. I run only windows defender on both machines, with what I believe to be identical settings. There's not that many settings to be had in windefender anyway.

 

[Bludd]

What about the latest drivers directly from Intel?

 

[Grall]

@Bludd
Been unsure what to download, if maybe there's different drivers for different NICs. But maybe intel network drivers are unified these days. Hopefully, because I'd hate having to dig up which IC is integrated onto my mobo.

 

[Bludd]

@Bludd
Been unsure what to download, if maybe there's different drivers for different NICs. But maybe intel network drivers are unified these days. Hopefully, because I'd hate having to dig up which IC is integrated onto my mobo.

It should say in device manager.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Yes that can be the case sometimes, but here I go from one PC to the next and the difference is immediately over 200Mbit/s. And the servers are good. It's meant as an official internet speed measuring service, run by the ISPs in cooperation with the swedish government...

But does it really matter if that one speedtest site gives the same result or not? I mean if Steam, porn etc. all download at the same speed then why care?

 

[Grall]

But does it really matter if that one speedtest site gives the same result or not?

Yes, but as I explained above, if one site gives rotten (hm!) performance, maybe other sites do as well. That's my boggle. I shouldn't get oddball performance figures on even ONE site, not when my old PC is equally fast across the board.

 

[Malo]

Did you try another browser?

 

[orangpelupa]

Try copying huge files from and to old / new PC.

Does it always saturate full 1gbps?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yes, but as I explained above, if one site gives rotten (hm!) performance, maybe other sites do as well. That's my boggle. I shouldn't get oddball performance figures on even ONE site, not when my old PC is equally fast across the board.

It's entirely possible that if the driver for that Ethernet port has QOS traffic shaping that it may deem that prioritizing traffic to that site (or to the software app being used) isn't that important and hence may limit it in order to prioritize other traffic.

Looking at the ASUS ROG Strix X299-XE Gaming from your post (I'm not sure if you still got that). It includes 2 things that can mess with your internet traffic. 2 things that your previous Ethernet port likely didn't have to deal with.

The first is Languard (https://rog.asus.com/articles/maximus-motherboards/what-is-rog-languard/ ) which is a physical modification of the Ethernet port.

The second is Gamefirst (https://rog.asus.com/technology/rep...tions/rog-gamefirst-2-intel-gigabit-ethernet/ ) This is basically just a software layer on top of Ethernet (cFosSpeed branded for Asus) that does traffic shaping.

You can't do anything about the first case and just have to hope Asus haven't done something really bizarre. The second, is potentially deciding which sites should get all the bandwidth and which sites shouldn't. Actually, more importantly it may be deciding which applications on your machine are allowed access to full bandwidth. IE - browsers may get only limited bandwidth while something like Steam are allowed full bandwidth.

I'd suggest uninstalling it and just installing the bare Intel Ethernet driver and see if that has any effect.

Regards,
SB

 

[Cyan]

has Silent tip solved the issue?

 

[Grall]

The first is Languard

This shouldn't affect one web server but not another. Hardware is bottom layer of OSI model or whatchamacallits, so should affect everything uniformly. It doesn't care from where packets come; flow control is higher up in the stack...

The second is Gamefirst

I don't bother with shit like that. Besides, any QoS which throttles downloads when it is the only data transfer going on at the time isn't worth its salt. That's just stupid.

has Silent tip solved the issue?

Sadly, no. I didn't see his reply until now btw.

I tried a few other internet speed providers/test servers, speedtest.net I think, and fast.com or whatever it's called; Netflix's own speedtest. None of them crack (much more than) 60Mbit/s. I would blame chrome, but I'm using chrome on my old PC as well and there I get 280Mbit/s, so that can't be it... :/

*Edit: besides, Edge gets same miserable results. fast.com, 63Mbit/s, speedtest.net 46Mbit/s.

Interesting detail is that some of the servers have revved up high past 60Mbits but then quickly throttled down within a second or two, so something funky is going on somewhere.