Hello, I know this problem and others like it have been posted a lot before, I have read all of them and tried everything but to no avail. Currently I have a 2008 R2 Server Standard running RRAS behind a NAT firewall. All the appropriate ports and protocols are forwarded, all of the NIC drivers are up to date, Windows Server is up to date and the firewall's firmware is up to date. All of the clients are running Windows 7 and all drivers and windows are up to date. All of that being said, when the clients connect to the PPTP VPN they can access shares and resources, but file downloads and uploads are limited to less than 100Kbs (yes KBPS!). Clients on the LAN connected with wireless have transfer speeds at around 3Mbps and wired at around 10Mbps. As you can imagine, this is a problem. What I have tried so far- 1. In order to test if ANY firewalls were causing the problem I disabled the firewall on the server, on the client and placed the server in the DMZ. No change. 2. Disabled all offloading options in both the NIC options and in the registry on both server and clients. No change. 3. Disabled all anti virus software. No change. 4. Forced Lan speed on server NICs, clients and firewall to 10 then 100 then 1000mbps. No change. 5. Disabled Smb2 in the registry on server and clients. No change. 6. Set up a virtual 2008 R2 server with HyperV and ran RRAS on it, forwarded the ports to it. Connected, but same speed issues. 7. Replaced all the cables. Nope, still no change. 8. Tested 5 different known good NICs and still no change. 9. Uninstalled and reinstalled RRAS about a dozen times. Still nothing. 10. Installed FTP services and tried connecting to the shares via FTP, still limited to less than 100kbps. Interestingly when I used Filezilla to connect to the site the speed shoots up to 500kbps and then hangs and drops back down to 100kbps. Like the speed is being throttled or something. 11. Called my ISP and yelled at them for throttling my VPN and FTP...It wasn't them, I was getting frustrated, sorry Rico. 12. Disabled TCP throttling (or something like that) in the registry. nope. 13. Replaced the firewall with a linksys E3000 router, then a Netgear 3700. Still nothing. And probably more that I can't remember anymore. This has been an ongoing issue for months now. At this point I am thinking of reinstalling Windows Server, although it would be a huge hassle. I have never seen this server even come close to maxing out it's resources on any component. Two 8 core processors, 24 gigs of ram, Raid arrays, blah blah. All hardware tested and working great. Can anyone give me any advice? Or is it time to reinstall?

Hi, Thank you for your question. I am trying to involve someone familiar with this topic to further look at this issue. There might be some time delay. Appreciate your patience. Thank you for your understanding and support. Best Regards, AidenAiden Cao TechNet Community Support

Thank you Aiden. I noticed some other odd behavior today that could help with troubleshooting, but I am not sure where to go with it. I started downloading a file from the server onto a client via the VPN and watched the networking monitor in task manager on the client. I noticed that the VPN network shows up there as well as the LAN connection, but when I am transferring the file the activity shows up on the LAN and the VPN stays at 0. That doesn't seem right. Also, I tested the connection with SSTP and L2TP and there was no difference.

Hi, By using PPTP VPN is slower than LAN connection is the normal symptom. However, I don't think it will be slower too much such as your sitation. As you said that the LAN connection has no problem. So I would like to know if you remove the middle devices during them, will the VPN client get faster speed than now? Based on our experience, the middle devices will possibly cause this kind of problem. I also noticed that you tried to disable the new feature in the Windows 2008 R2/Windows 7 to exclude them. If that does not help, Would you like to try capturing the package from client and the server in two situations. One hand is by VPN connection, the other hand is LAN connection. Compare these two packages, can we find anything difference between them? Thanks. Best Regards, Annie Gu

Well, actually I would definitely say the LAN connection has a problem. My transfer is 10mbps on a gigabit network and 3mbps on wireless. I have put the server in front of the router and there was no difference, anyway the router has a max throughput of 60mbps. I have actually tested the throughput of this VPN connection at 10mbps, but the file transfer speed is not there. Could please explain how I would go about capturing packets?

Hi, If you want to compare these two packages, I suggest you to use the Netmon Tools developed from Microsoft for capturing them. Here is the reference for you to know how to use it: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/812953 The article provides the information about how to capture the network trace and how to analyze it. If you meet any question, please feel free to let me know. Thanks. Best Regards, Annie

Hi Shuku, Maybe you can try to disable the TCP Chimney and RSS Features May Cause Slow File Transfers or Cause Connectivity Problem. kindly find the below link. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsserver2008r2general/thread/2e14aa58-cb9b-462c-8a9e-7b10be2de3cb/ Run this Command in the CMD netsh int tcp set global chimney=disabled netsh int tcp set global rss=disabled netsh int tcp show global Try this and let me know the status. Regards, Sridharan. M

I have already tried disabling Chimney Offloading, RSS, Smb2 and all TCIP offloading options in the NIC options. There was no effect, thanks though.

Ok, I used netmon to compare the LAN and VPN connections. On the LAN side, I can see the client connecting to the internal IP address of the server using a TCP,SMB and SMB over TCP. On the VPN I see the client connect to the server using the servers FQDN and successfully uses PPP and GRE 47 to connect and communicate. However, when I transfer a file the client and server are using TCP port 80 (HTTP) to transfer the file. Seems like this ties in to my earlier post about the lack of network traffic on VPN.

Alright, after some further testing I think I have been able to completely eliminate the network itself as the problem. Today I bench marked my hard drives, LAN and VPN speeds. My hard drives scored around 200\150 R\W speeds. I used Lan Speed Test in the office on the LAN and got a file transfer speed of 100+ MBPS. I then tested a remote client on the VPN and got a file transfer speed of 1.5 MBPS, which is exactly what it should be. So why is LAN Speed Test able to do this and windows 7/Server 2008 R2 is not? I also booted up an old XP machine and hooked it up to the VPN and got the same slow speeds (less than 100KBPS) as I do on Windows 7. So, through process of elimination, it seems that Windows Server 2008 R2 is somehow limiting the speeds of file transfers both on the LAN and on the VPN. Does anyone have any suggestion as to why this might be?

HI, You said that you used the webdave(http) to test the transmission speed. Can you modify it to the SMB protocol for testing in the system? Thanks, Annie Gu

I always had the impression that PPTP was extremely slow. I've setup a lot of PPTP setups with both Cisco Small Business routers and directly to 2003/2008 server and they've always been as slow as you mention. I thought the limit was in the protocol itself? I do not want to propose this as an answer or confuse the discussion, but if there's a "solution" to it I've yet to find one.

@Annie I never set the server to use webdav, I'm not sure why it's using HTTP. @itssab PPTP is usually faster than L2TP or SSTP because the authentication is faster. The throughput should be around 75-90% of the WAN speed, I have tested this on the server in question and found it to be true. I have tried using both L2TP and SSTP and they are both being limited. Furthermore, the file transfer speed on the LAN is limited to around 10 mbs. At this point I don't think the VPN or any network devices are the limiting factor. It seems all file transfer to and from the server are being throttled by the server itself.

@Shuku I will definitely have to look into this then. Like I said, I have never seen a PPTP VPN go as fast as you describe, but I don't doubt what you're saying. This has been the same whether it's been against VPN routers or a 2003/2008 server - always slow. I'll do some extensive testing on this next week.

Hi, I think that we could get the "SMB" back as the primary provider in NIC card to see if the "http" cause the issue. Input "ncpa.cpl" into the Run command and you will see Network Connections. Then, press "Alt" on the keyboard, and click the "Advanced" in the menu. Choose the Advanced Settings, and click Tab "Provider Order". Make sure the turn is listed: Microsoft Remote Desktop Session Host ServerMicrosoft Windows NetworkWeb Client Network. I think if you list the Web Client Network, the tcp will go through http to transfer the file. Then, please check if you still get the same slow speed for the file. Thanks. Best Regards, Annie Gu

Annie, still slow.

Hi, When you change the to the "SMB" as the primary provider in NIC card, then by capturing the network traffic by Netmon, I think we could see the SMB transmission process. If so, please capture the network traffic again and see if any slow during the package. Or, would you like to upload the network traffic package for me via any web space? If so, please let me know the IP address in the network traffic involved in this case. Thanks for your time. Best Regards, Annie Gu