Vista Wireless Performance Questionnaire

Similar problem to jellen:

Tried to set MTU to 1492 but the change would not persist.
Changed Speed/Duplex Mode from auto to 100 full duplex.
Then changed MTU to 1492. This time it changed, but Frontview locked up and I had to reboot using the power button.

Regards...

...leo

Performance issues still remain with the new 4.1.5 Beta

Kind regards
Jellen

Same problems here. ReadyNAS Duo owner now for a week. Two laptops on XP working fast (enough?) (around 2,5 MB/s from NAS via 54g to laptop). Lot's of problems with my new laptop Sony VAIO VGN-FW21E (wireless n).

Read this forum, changed MTU in ReadyNAS Duo from 1500 to 1492 about one hour ago, problems seemed to be solved. I do not have programms to measure up/download speeds. Also only using wireless at this moment, so can't measure difference in wired/wireless.

Answers on the questions:

With the amount of Vista issues on the forum. We are going to put out a questionnaire here to get more information on the setups to get get a grasp of what is happening.

1) Has MTU been changed to 1492 and running Windows Vista SP1
YES
2) Model of Wireless Router and Firmware used.
Netgear NWR3500, Firmware Version V1.0.30_8.0.30
3) Wireless Card Model and Firmware
Intel Wireless Wifilink 5100 in VAIO. Driver version 12.0.0.73.
4) Connection Speed that you are seeing for Wireless Adapter. (54Mbps/24Mbps)
72 Mbps
5) Connection Speed between ReadyNAS to Router (10/100/1000Mbps)
cat 5e
6) Throughput from Windows XP to ReadyNAS and Vista to ReadyNAS. Both Machines at or near same location. (Read/Write MB/sec)
do no know how to measure
7) Throughput from Windows XP to Vista (Read/Write MB/sec)
do no know how to measure
8) If MTU settings were changed to 1492 and SP1 is installed, Would like a Wireshark capture when transfering data from Vista to ReadyNAS
what is this

If ommitted information is needed, please reply and explain me how to measure this.

Dirk

Problem solved!
I have changed my Netgear WNR3500 router for a Linksys WRT610N. Changed back MTU setting to 1500 and enabled jumbo frames.

Performance went up extremely!

I have tested wireless speed by copying a large movie from my ReadyNas Duo to my Sony laptop.

With the Netgear router: 2,5 - 3 Mb/s.
With the Linksys router: 8 - 8,5 Mb/s.

My decision of using products from the same manufacturer did not seemed to be the best one. In my opinion there must be a problem depending on the type or brand of router used. I have not changed settings (only port forwarding en wireless security). This Linksys router had been tested as the best value for money in several tests in several countries. As long as Netgear can't provide a solution for this problem, this Linksys router is a very good choice!

kiki wrote:
Hi Chewbacca, I would just confirm that all Vista related performance issues were solved on my Notebook after I changed the NetworkThrottlingIndex registry key value to 70 (Decimal) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile\ Name : NetworkThrottlingIndex As described here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/948066

Can you provide further information? I'm having lots of performance and reliability issues with my wireless-N connection. I am also having performance issues w/ my wired connection. Both are Vista. (For further information, you can read my posting on 1 Jan 2008.)

I read the Microsoft help and support topic that you mentioned. It seems that it applies to the situation where there are multiple streams of data and at least some are time-sensitive. This doesn't describe the situation that I'm struggling with, though. Still, if you've got a solution that would help me, I would like to understand it.

In advance, thanks.

Hi,

You can glean the answers to most of your wireless questions on my posts:

http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=24319

Let me re-iterate by saying that both wired and wireless performance of Vista PC is poor in my system. Wireless, by far, is the worst. It isn't even reliable. Therefore, I find that my Outlook Mail file, my iTunes Library, and my Lightroom2 catalog file become corrupted when I use these applications. (Note that I am not using the NV+ for backups but, rather, as my primary storage location.) I've lost maybe 6 hours of time due to an unrecoverable Lightroom2 catalog.

At times I've seen wireless speed approaching 100Mbps. This is with wireless-N only mode enabled, 40MHz channel BW enabled, and the PC located in close proximity to the router. The data stream, unfortunately, lasts only a short while because I can cause the connection to fail 100% of the time under these conditions. Because of this, I've been forced to 'throttle back' by setting my router to wireless-G only mode. This is contrary to the effort that I've made and the money that I've spent in upgrading my network. Still, I have to be very careful because it still fails now and again. What I think I've seen is that the system chokes when it receives a high-rate data stream. For me it chokes to the point that my only recovery is by re-booting the Vista PC.

I've tried NV+ MTU=1492, Vista MTU<1500, NetworkThrottlingIndex=70, disabling firewalls, turing off gadgets, etc. There are numerous antidotes reported on your forums, none of which have worked for me and for few others as well. Furthermore, all this confusion is not helpful. You, the manufacturer, are the only ones who can restore sanity. I don't know if the solution is to change some settings in Vista or for a new firmware release, but it is for you to figure out.

This problem makes me nervous because I've made the NV+ a key component in my network. I've spent quite a bit of money on this device and I haven't been disappointed until now. My immediate impression is that Vista has done something different that is incompatible with the NV+ and this has taken you by surprise. Therefore, it's not your fault. Yet, Vista is here to stay. (I haven't seen anyone offering a new PC with XP installed.) Here is an article dated 15 February 2007:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-Vista-Kills-Networks-47208.shtml.

You can substitute 'NV+' for the words 'outdated network router' in the piece. It's not a well-written article but it seems to indicate that Vista networking problems have been known about for a long time. This brings me to the next thing about this problem that makes me nervous. We haven't yet heard a difinitive statement from your company acknowledging the problem, stating your determination to find a solution, and an estimate of when this solution might be made available. We are still waiting for you to lead us out of this mess.

Regards,
daveP

Hello everybody,
I just wanted you all to know that i have been experiencing all the same issues with Vista. However I decided to go to extreme measures. :P I completely uninstalled my firewall and antivirus software. CA Antivirus. Not just turned off but uninstalled. I also performed all the other tweaks like the mtu 1492, increasing throttle to 70 etc. Turned off the sidebar. Let me tell you I was beating my head against a wall since it worked great with my other XP laptop. Well after I uninstalled the CA antivirus which by the way would not recommend to any one, very slow and resource hog. I just used because it was free from my internet provider. Any way Now VISTA is SMOKIN Fast on the built GIG and Jumbo enabled NAS NV+ I backup up my wholes system with 250g of data and 100g free space. In about 2 hours. Using a D link 655 Extreme router wired connection of course. I also tried the wireless after, and it took almost 4 hours. But still better then 9 days.. :) Or freezing up completely. So please try and remove all you 3rd party firewalls and antivirus to see if that helps. and post your comments would love to know. I love the readynas NV+ but would like to upgrade to the pro versions soon. I have been using it for about a year before netgear bought infrant out.

Also here is a link to explain how to change your mtu setting in vista

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/vistaMTU.htm


Thanks
Kevin

Hi there, I've had a ReadyNas Duo about 3-4 months and it's worked fine out of the box. However I just bought a new laptop and had to have vista on it rather than xp :(. The ReadyNas works fine from my xp laptop, but runs like I'm on a dial up connection from vista making it pretty unusable. I've down loaded theIOmeter and readynas test file and this confirms my problems.

There is a lot of information in this thread about tweaking vista and a ReadyNas, I guess I'm after a tip of where to start....


I'll look to get more detailed info up, but I've got a ReadyNas Duo with 2 x 750GB disk RAIDed -- 100mb duplex lan connection to a netgear Rangemax router. I've connected my vista laptop with a 54Mbps wireless link. I'm not expecting stella performance with this setup, but I'd hope to crack the 1MBs transfer rate. when I look at the outputs from IOmeter, the latency look pretty hi (average 218ms, max 1816ms) and I'm getting a sub 1MBs transfer rate

thanks for any pointers!

Matt.

I've been experiencing the same thing since owning a ReadyNAS (for the past 6-7 months). It's driving me nuts! The MTU workaround is not acceptable because it greatly affects the wired performance, which I depend on for backups and large transfers... But wireless on Vista is completely unusable right now...

ken830 wrote:
I've been experiencing the same thing since owning a ReadyNAS (for the past 6-7 months). It's driving me nuts! The MTU workaround is not acceptable because it greatly affects the wired performance, which I depend on for backups and large transfers... But wireless on Vista is completely unusable right now...

I have found a temporary solution!

Change the MTU setting on your Vista wireless card to 1460 via this method: http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/vistaMTU.htm Wireless performance on Vista is great, at least on my G network at home.

Leave the Readynas at it's default 1500 so that wired transfers maintain their performance.

Report back if this works out for you.
Kind regards
Jellen