DI-624 wireless and gigabit router

zigdapig wrote:
...I will try the direct connection when I find a cross-cable somewhere...

There is no need for a cross-over, the NAS NIC is autosensing.

Hi guys,

Yeah, the new version of the switch is green, but I have an older version of this switch (from 2008 or so...).

All cabling is at least cat5e and tested with a cable tester, and since I sometimes can stream music to 2 pc's simultaneaously for up to 10 minutes without experiencing any dropouts, I'm pretty confident the cabling is ok. I also tried different cables, and I'm confident that with the combinations I tried there should have at least been 1 configuration that should have worked.
I also get up to 600 MBit effective speed (from measurement tools) from and to the NAS.

I checked the error log you mentioned, and it shows no errors and no dropped packages (only a coule of dropped RX packages from the time when I unplugged the router and switch while I was streaming music, but none since then).

I will try the direct connection when I find a cross-cable somewhere, I guess this is my final option... It's probably the switch then I guess, but I still find it strange that it sometimes works for 10 minutes straight without any dropouts, and then suddenly again dropouts every minute.

I must say I also had a lot of problems with host name resolving, but I think I've solved this now
But when I ping the readynas, the address is still sometimes resolved to the static IP address of the disconnected port of the readynas for some reason...
I solved this by adding a fixed entry in the Hosts file on both windows clients.
Before I solved this, I really encountered dropouts where Windows would actually say it didn't find the network drive anymore (e.g. during copying files)
I didn't encounter that issue anymore today, so that's already a great improvement...

Anyway, thanks for the tips !

Have you tried a direct connection to the PC on which you are trying to play the music? Years ago when I got my first NVX to upgrade from my NV+, I was immediately impressed with the write to speed, but a few days later apalled at the read from speed (at time less than 1kB/sec). Using the above guide to which I was referred by several members, I determined that it was not the NVX nor the cable. Through the process of elimination I determined it was the switch (D-Link DGS2205) which was somehow incompatible with the NVX, but worked fine with the NV+. I replaced it with a Netgear GS108 and have not had a problem sinces. (I did not directly connect to the router for it was at the time a Linksys WRT-54GS with 100mb/s ports).

If the problem goes away with the direct connection, then you know you have a problem somewhere in the network. You then add the elements back one by one until you find the one giving you the problem. In the initial test, I would test the connection with the cable you intend to use between the NAS and the switch, then the cable you intend to use between the switch and the router (if possisble - I recognize this may be wiring inside of structure so might not be possible) and then the cable between the router and the PC (again if possible). That way you have the cables all checked as well.

Just because you are not seeing problems with other uses on the cables does not mean there might not be a problem. I had a commercially made cable that was giving my problems once and using a cable tester, it had a bad connection on one wire. I replaced one end (50/50 chance) and then it passed. That cable is still in use.

-Dlink's web page describes the switch as green (and claims up to 40% power savings). I was going by that.

-By "marginal" I meant degraded (broken but not totally failing). For example, a loose RJ45 connection, too much cable capacitance, some other electrical type issue.

-The cable grade should be printed on the cable, if it doesn't expressly say cat 5e or cat 6, then you should try a different cable that does.

-Are you saying that ping -f -l 1470 <ip address> times out? Or that you get the "packet needs to be fragmented" message? If you set the MTU to 1472, then the maximum value in the ping command would be 1444. There is 28 bytes of overhead in the ping command which is not accounted for in the -l <xxxx>. The normal ethernet MTU is 1500 btw, so that should work well with any LAN ethernet device.

Your ultra maintains stats on the ethernet connection (network->interfaces, there is a "show errors" button next to the status). It might be helpful to look there (maybe post the errors it reports).

It would also be a good idea to check the SMART stats (under status->health, click on the icon for each drive and you should get a pop-up).

Have you switching to the other ethernet port on the ultra?

I'd leave jumbo frames off for now, as that won't solve connection dropouts, and could well create other issues.

Hi StephenB,

Thanks for the reply.

What do you mean by "marginal" ? You mean "broken" ?
Actually, I'm now still encountering regular dropouts, and now the traffic only goes through a D-Link DGS-1008D... :-(
I already switched ports / cables, but no effect. I'm pretty sure the cabling is ok. I also experience no problems whatsoever connecting
between several WinXP and Win7 client PC's (shares, remote desktop, even playing MP3's from a shared folder on 1 PC to another PC also works perfectly !)
I did a simple (not very reliable, but still) network speedtest, and that indicates 500 Mbit / sec from and to my NAS.
I tried to set the MTU settings to 1470 (which all of my PC's seem to be able to handle, I tested this with "ping -f -l 1470 <IP-address>"). No effect...
I also enabled WINS, and tried to enable Jumbo Frames, but this all made no difference whatsoever...
Basically, I tried everything I could find, but no luck, the connections still keep dropping out.
Sometimes it works for a minute or 15 straight, and then suddenly again hiccups every minute or couple of minutes...

I'm getting desperate... Could this really be the D-Link DGS-1008D switch (this is not a green-mode switch by the way).
But then I still don't understand why the NAS is giving me trouble while I am having no problems between my several PC's ?

I don't think the problem was with your topology, which is not unusual. I think it is more likely a marginal cable or switch-port, or some incompatibility (perhaps the green mode was confusing the router).