64x Wired network dropping off on large no of file transfer.

Hi, I'm hoping for some help with something odd.

I have a Vista 64x workstation since Nov 08 which has been fine until recently. It has started having network problems when accessing large numbers of files from remote locations.

I have a readyNAS network storage device with a number of shares which are mounted as network drives on the PC, wired ethernet. Vista is set up as a private network and set to trust the LAN. The readynas is flawless when accessed from other XP and Vista machines on the LAN.

Recent example, tried loading on photos from a camera, approx 700 files.
Went fast at first, but over 300 files, copying would slow to a crawl - 16Kb.
While this is happening, other LAN access and internet access becomes intermittent.

If I use picasa, which accesses all photos on the remote drive, it'll work for a while but then crawl, only in this case the whole machine slows down.

I've tried disabling auto-tuning but that made no difference.

LAN has a NAT firewall (Netgear FWG114P with latest firmware) and there is no software firewall running. PC: Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz, 8Gb 800MHZ RAM, Sapphire 512Mb Radeon HD 4670, Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit.

Can anyone help? This is infuriating!

I have disabled IPv6 and auto-tuning.

(I long ago did the steps here: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/72308-auto-tuning-tcp-ip-receive-level.html?filter and it made no difference).
Even though all the other machines on the network are fine I've pulled the infrastructure apart. Router updated to latest firmware, router checks out OK on vista compatibility checker, the switch has been checked and double checked + direct connection made, the LAN cables have been swapped out. This same machine has a ubuntu dual boot, so the same hardware in a different OS works absolutely faultlessly, and a VMware XP install on ubuntu also works faultlessly.

It feels like it can ONLY be vista ultimate 64!! There is something about this OS which is causing problems, but it started after the machine was 3 months old. Vista update maybe?

any help appreciated

Sounds similar to what I was experiencing copying files - I agree it can be very frustrating

I changed loads of settings as recommended in the various posts on thes forums but in the end I think it was because I various had hardware assists turned on in the the network adapter - like offloads etc. I turned them all off and the speed increased and the files now copy (in the main) with out any problem. You need to check out the properties on your network adapter.

Hope this helps

Thanks for the reply Hardware assists? Do you mean IPv6 or something else?

abssorb said:

... Do you mean IPv6 or something else?

Click to expand...

Something else

First off I am not an expert in this area but I have picked up some odd bits and pieces when trawling round the net.

By hardware assist I am mean the capability of the network adapter to do some things that would otherwise have to be done by the CPU. You request the network adapter to do them by setting various network adapter properties, so it will do them rather than the CPU.

To get to these settings, do the following:
1. Go to Network and Sharing Centre
2. Select your Connection and click on 'View Status' - the network adapter status is shown.
3. Click on 'Properties' - The network adapter properties are shown.
4. Click on 'Configure' - the network adapter configuration details are shown.
5. Click on 'Advanced' tab - The parameters for the network adapter are shown.

Select each property in the list and change the value as appropriate and then click OK.
Different network adapter types will have different properties, so what I am about to suggest may or may not be appropriate.
I changed property 'Large Send Offload (IPV4)' to disabled - this property AFAIK tells the network adapter to offload some processing from the CPU to the network adapter. On my adapter there are various other 'Large Send Offload' settings which I have disabled.

Hope this helps and good luck