Vista sees 100MB/s Network as 10MB/s (XP worked fine)

[dandd]

Hello, I'm having a problem where I just got a newer computer and for some reason when I try to share media or files, the computer is extremely slow. I can stream to my PS3 or 360 on my laptop hooked up to the same router (wired) and share media just fine and my old XP computer shared media just fine. I stream a movie and it says something like 1-2% network utilization on the Laptop. Now when I use Vista to stream movies it will say something like 98% network utilization. When I transfer files between the Vista PC and XP laptop, I will get speeds up to 8-11MB/s max and network utilization will be 97-98%. I'm pretty sure that Vista sees my router as 10MB/s, but I have no idea why.

I'm using:

M3N78 Pro MB & Nvidia 8300 iGPU
Athlon X2 6000+
4GB G Skill RAM
640GB WD SATA & 500GB MAXTOR SATA
Windows Vista Ultimate


Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

 

[tcsenter]

First, let's get the throughput terminology right. Network throughput rates are described using bits, not bytes. e.g.

Mb = Megabit
MB = Megabyte

100 Mbits = 12.5 Megabytes
10 Mbits = 1.25 Megabytes

Maximum effective throughput will be about 85% of the advertised raw throughput. e.g.

100 Mbps = approx. 10.6 Megabytes per second
10 Mbps = approx. 1.06 Megabytes per second


Its easy enough to confirm the rate Vista is connecting to your router, by looking at the network properties. Does it report the network connection as 10Mb or 100Mb? Are you using the M3N78 Pro's integrated LAN? What drivers? Vista with or without SP1? What router are you using?

 

[dandd]

OK, sorry I totally never noticed the MB - Mb thing with networking, because I've really never paid any attention. The speed with XP never made me ever question anything.


Here is my real problem, but I have no clue why it is happening: It takes forever to stream media to my 360 and PS3. Using XP, I was getting excellent results and no load times, now with a newer computer and Vista I'm waiting like 30-40 seconds for a movie to start and skipping a head is taking 20-20 seconds to load also.

Like I stated before, I can connect to my laptop and get (what I know now) are good connection speeds. I can plug my xp laptop into the same router and get perfect playback on my PS3 and 360. I just can't get good speed from the Vista computer when hooked up to the 360 or PS3. I'm pretty sure my hardware is OK, because I hooked a piece of RJ45 between the Vista PC and 360 and I still got slow results and a rate of around 1Mb or 1MB/s I forgot to write it down, either way it is still much slower than my XP computer ever was.

I'm using:
M3N78 Pro MB & Nvidia 8300 iGPU
Athlon X2 6000+
4GB G Skill RAM
640GB WD SATA & 500GB MAXTOR SATA
Windows Vista Ultimate
Onboard nVidia LAN

Vista PC -> Netgear WPN824v2 Router -> D-Link DSS8+ Switch -> PS3 & 360

Like I've said I bypassed all the networking gear and hooked up the RJ45 from the Vista PC and the 360 and I still got the same slow results. I should say that media sharing to the PS3 is just as slow and perhaps even slower than the 360.

 

[notherdude]

I hooked a piece of RJ45 between the Vista PC and 360

WHOA THERE!!

A standard Ethernet cable CANNOT be used to link two PCs or a PC and an Xbox. If you hook the PC and the 360 directly you need a piece of cable with the wires reversed in the middle, aka a crossover cable, otherwise you will get a horrible connection.

There is also one port on your router that cannot be used for connecting to a PC. That port will be marked differently and is usually at one end of the device. It is only used to connect to another router or a switch and if you hook up a PC to it that PC will have a horrible, barely functioning connection - is there any chance you have the Vista PC hooked up to that port?

wiki Crossover ethernet cable:

An Ethernet crossover cable is a type of Ethernet cable used to connect computing devices together directly where they would normally be connected via a network switch, hub or router, such as directly connecting two personal computers via their network adapters. Typical uses are: router to router, switch to switch, pc to pc, router to pc (Note: router and pc are LIKE devices, because both are DTE. Caution: home routers already have built-in adapter,so you can use straight through cable directly)

 

[tcsenter]

Try installing the latest nForce drivers from NVIDIA, if you don't already have them:

Vista x86 32-bit

Vista x64 64-bit