Via Epia M PCI Bus Speed?

Nico3k · 09-22-2004, 06:26 PM

Hello.
I just recently setup a Gigabit fileserver using an EPIA M10000 and a Netgear PCI Gbit card. Hard drive is a 7200RPM 8MB Cache Western Digital standard sized ATA100 drive which I tested and it benchmarks around 65MByte/sec on HDTach.
Everything is installed and working good. However, the transfer speed is less than 100Mbit. Not even close to 1000Mbit. On both the 1GBit PCI card and the OnBoard 10/100 LAN, the speed is 3.8MByte/sec.
I have tried using the onboard LAN to see if it would even give me 100Mbit transfer speed, but the max I get for both is about ~30Mbit (3.8 MByte/sec).

I am assuming the onboard 10/100 LAN uses the PCI bus... so does the EPIA's PCI bus only run at 33MBit/sec or something?!?! When I test the same GBit PCI card on my other computers, I get around 500-600MBit/sec.

If anyone has any advice, please share.
Thanks,
-Nico

voidunknown · 09-22-2004, 06:35 PM

I think you are a "bit" confused (No pun intended). Gigbit network will give you a maximum transfer rate of 125MB/s. Gigabit network is geared towards high network traffic. Dont expect to install a network and expect to get 1000mb everytime. It is mainly there to deal with high network congestion. Why would you need gigabit network anyways? 100mb is fine for any home user.

voidunknown · 09-22-2004, 06:38 PM

Oh, to answer your question directly:

Quote:

At 33 MHz, a 32-bit slot supports a maximum data transfer rate of 132 MBytes/sec, and a 64-bit slot supports 264 MBytes/sec.

Even at 33MHz and 32-bit, the PCI bus can handle Gigabit network.

Nico3k · 09-22-2004, 08:17 PM

I think you are a bit confused. Yes I do need Gbit... and Gbit is not just for traffic congestion. Obviusly you won't get 1000MBit (128MBytes/sec)... hard drives only do around 60MBytes/s.
When trying to stream very high resolution 3D HDTV files over LAN, you need a throughput of at least 30MBytes/sec... 100MBit LAN wont deliver that (only ~12.5MB/s throughput).

My question: Why won't the EPIA M10000 transfer at speeds higher than ~30Mbit (or 3.8 MByte/sec) with either the OnBoard LAN nor a GBit PCI card? All my other computers do.

judoGTI · 09-22-2004, 08:45 PM

You need to wait for the Epia G10000 board.

haha I couldnt help myself....

Nico3k · 09-22-2004, 08:47 PM

Right... while I wait for it, can anyone explain why all EPIA's only transfer 3.8MByte/sec using both onboard LAN and Gigabit PCI?

voidunknown · 09-23-2004, 10:59 AM

My onboard LAN for my MII-12000 does an average of 8MB-9MB/s. Maybe you have a faulty board.

SAScooby · 09-23-2004, 11:07 AM

the obvious thing comes to mind ? drivers for the pci bus / net card

or perhaps there is a setting in the bios

or even on the mobo for net speed

does seem a bit odd thats for sure

Cheers

Hylton

JC-S60 · 09-23-2004, 11:17 AM

Check for bottlenecks in the system.

Check CPU, check if you can do 2 transfers at the same time over the 2 nic's (on board and other), run some diags. Maybe try another OS, just to check.

The pci should do more, as the hdd controller runs off it too...

voidunknown · 09-23-2004, 11:39 AM

Just curious, have you disabled the onboard NIC?

Herve · 09-23-2004, 11:47 AM

Hi!
In the Bios check if IDE prefetch... is enable for fast block transfer, HD type on Auto etc...
Also, what OS are you using? If windows, did you installed the right drivers? (Silly question, I know, but... ;-) ) If using Linux 2.6.x try a 2.4: There's a faulty module, via82cxx that may yield to bad transfer. A patch is on his way as far as I remember.
Then, check IDE cable, no CD/DVD on the 80 IDE cable, swap memory to check if it is O.K. ok, you know all of this. I stop! :-D

Quote: Originally Posted by JC-S60

Check for bottlenecks in the system.

Check CPU, check if you can do 2 transfers at the same time over the 2 nic's (on board and other), run some diags. Maybe try another OS, just to check.

The pci should do more, as the hdd controller runs off it too...

Nico3k · 09-23-2004, 06:05 PM

Thanks for all the replies. That is a good idea to try both NICs at the same time; I will try it soon.

The bottleneck is not the CPU... when measuring performance, the CPU is at 17% load while the bandwidth is topping out at 3800KByte/sec.

I have the onboard 10/100 disabled right now. I enabled it only temporarily to see if the speed would exceed 3.8MB/s (which it did not).

Regarding the OS's: I have tried both 2000 Pro and XP Pro both with the same exact result.

What is this module faul you speak of? Any more information would help. Thanks!