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Thread: Lan network speed

  1. #1
    Senior Member michaeln's Avatar
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    Lan network speed

    Hi all

    Is there any utility that you would recommend that would test the bandwidth of a client to client connection on a home LAN?

    I have a home network (wired and WiFi) with four different WiFi Routers (Belkin, D-Link, Air Station and Cisco) in bridge mode and would just like to test the data transfer speed.

    Regards,


    Michael

  2. #2
    Member ua549's Avatar
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    Any file transfer will show the effective speed. WiFi is the slowest component.

  3. #3
    Senior Member michaeln's Avatar
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    Thanks for the reply. I have tried several file transfer mechanisms such as Windows Explorer, Local folder to shared remote folder and Teamviewer file transfer with widely varying results. I was just looking for a programme like a benchmarking programme for Lan traffic, if one exists.

  4. #4
    Administrator Steve R Jones's Avatar
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    You'll get different results with different methods...

    Good old stopwatch - divide the time by the size of the file is a simple way to test.

  5. #5
    Senior Member michaeln's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steve R Jones View Post
    You'll get different results with different methods...

    Good old stopwatch - divide the time by the size of the file is a simple way to test.
    The Old School way will have to do I guess then ;-)

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    Now a large file about 500 MB such as a Windows OS Service pack, works well using that timing method.

  7. #7
    Senior Member michaeln's Avatar
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    Thanks for the reply. I know what you are saying and I have transferred files in excess of 300meg. Having used differing methods of file transfer and receiving vastly different times, I was getting interested in the "mechanics" of the actual file transfer.

    1. Transferring a 137meg file from remote laptop via wifi to a desktop on a gigabit Lan by dragging and dropping from a shared laptop folder to my C drive on the desktop took 37 seconds

    2. Transferring the same file from same to same location on same network, this time using TeamViewer file transfer took 1 minute 45 seconds.

    3. Ditto this time using Windows Explorer to copy/paste - 50 seconds.

    Now for the reverse journey:

    1. above in reverse - 19 seconds

    2. above in reverse - 4 minutes 44 seconds

    3. above in reverse - 14 seconds


    Interesting results?

  8. #8
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    Now that shows what canhappen say fron XP to Win 7 or visa versa.

    XP and Vista are much slower than win 7. That XP rate has had me smoking for about 10 years.

    I just figured out push to or from a certain OS is faster and live with it.

    Hacking the regs can help a bit, but I gave up on that business as not worth it years ago.

  9. #9
    Senior Member michaeln's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Train View Post
    Now that shows what canhappen say fron XP to Win 7 or visa versa.

    XP and Vista are much slower than win 7. That XP rate has had me smoking for about 10 years.

    I just figured out push to or from a certain OS is faster and live with it.

    Hacking the regs can help a bit, but I gave up on that business as not worth it years ago.
    Well I am using Win 7 pro 64bit on both systems. The actual speeds don't bother me too much. I am just interested in understanding the differences (if I can). I thought there might be a "simple" app out there that would be able to monitor the transfers and show me where the bottlenecks are. I started the Cisco ICND1 and ICND2 courses recently and am beginning to very slowly understand what is happening.

  10. #10
    Member ua549's Avatar
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    Wireless is the wild card since any kind of interference (common) can cause a retransmit.
    Also wireless is a shared technology so any other connected wireless devices will consume some bandwidth even if they appear to be inactive.

  11. #11
    Senior Member michaeln's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ua549 View Post
    Wireless is the wild card since any kind of interference (common) can cause a retransmit.
    Also wireless is a shared technology so any other connected wireless devices will consume some bandwidth even if they appear to be inactive.
    I have 4 wifi routers, all 802.11n. I use channels 1,6 and 11. I have two on channel 11 and they are the furthest from each other. The way they are located gives me the maximum coverage.

    The entire system works fine but I would love to have some sort of application that would display traffic patterns through the system. I have used Wireshark but this is too comples for me.

  12. #12
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    Use inSSIDER to see if another router close by is on the same channel.
    http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/

    And it will graph the signal strength.

    And because of the poor antennas in laptops, I will need to get something like this to use at times.



    Just in case,
    10 tips to help improve your wireless network

    http://www.microsoft.com/athome/setup/wirelesstips.aspx

    Another tool,which I prefer, this one does not install: WirelessNetView
    http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/wireless_network_view.html
    Last edited by Train; 08-20-2011 at 11:37 AM.

  13. #13
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    network_activity_indicator_by_laushung-d3ekd45
    http://www.datafilehost.com/download-c01d17f5.html

    or with tutorial
    http://windows7themes.net/show-netwo...stem-tray.html




    Another stand alone.
    Last edited by Train; 08-20-2011 at 01:30 PM.

  14. #14
    Senior Member michaeln's Avatar
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    Thanks Train. Some interesting stuff there. I downloaded Network_activity_indicator unfortunately it is Chinese or Korean. Is there an English version of it?

  15. #15
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    That is weird, my copies are in English.
    Found
    http://www.mediafire.com/?nktc4tidpv38jd2

    Hope that is OK.

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