OK I'm having a strange issue with my new laptop which I think by a process of elimination appears to be Windows 7 related. I can find several other sites covering issues with this but all the soutions I look at don't seem to work. Laptop is an alienware M17xx, and I get this problem with both the gigabit NIC and wireless NIC (both intel). My internet performance (after upgrading the driver files, as the gigabit was initially having disconnect problems) is absolutely fine and using my broadband router to its full potential (getting around 4-6 MBPs). The problem is accessing any of the machines on my home network. On my home network I have: Netgear DGN2000 adsl router 3x Netgear GS605 switches (1 gigabit) Old Dell Inspiron laptop running XP SP3 Custom built desktop running Win 7 x64 DNS323 NAS All connected by Cat6 cable All the above communicate perfectly and have very high transfer speeds (basically limiting factor is each machines network card or hard disk performance) between each other so it isn't the network, and the desktop machine with Win7 has no issues strangely either. When I try to copy files using explorer I get transfer speeds that are around 30-150 K/s (as opposed to double figures MB/s of all the rest of the network). The same is also true if I setup an FTP server on the desktop machine or the NAS, exactly the same transfer speeds, but yet as previously stated when I download of the internet I get speeds of over 600K/s so there appears to be another bottleneck somewhere. (xcopy and robocopy also have the same speeds.) This over My Network or mapped drives as well. OK what I have tried so far: - Upgraded all drivers - no difference except solved a seperate problem with the gigabit NIC having DC problems (wireless was unaffected n the first place) - Changed cabling and which switches laptop was connected too (and isolated onto a seperate physical network with just laptop or NAS) - no difference - Disable and uninstall AVG Internet Security - no difference - Disabled RDC - no difference - Diasbled Autotuning - no difference - Disabled RSS and chimney - no difference - Left homegroup - no difference - Disabled offloading - no difference - Manually set duplex / half duplex / variable speeds - no difference - Tried manually set ip vs DHCP (clutching at straws) - no difference - Disabled NetBIOS (again clutching at straws) - no difference (and re-enabled for less headaches) Only theory I can muster is that windows treats intranet traffic different to internet traffic and its interfering with the intranet traffic somehow (as its also affecting FTP which is a seperate entity when security is concerned isn't it?).

Hi Walrus, after checking your issue, it seems an issue related to the home network. Please try test in Safe Mode, turn off the Auto-Tuning. press Ctrl+Shift+Enter to open the Command Prompt. Choose run as administrator. Type in: netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled Hope it works.

Please read my post completely before replying, already done that. AND can you kindly tell me HOW its the home network, EVERYTHING else works perfectly just the new factory installed machine and I've swapped all the switches and routers around etc etc STILL the same problem.

HI MAJ Walrus, I've followed your thread from another one about "Why is Windows 7 so slow in copying network files?". I've seen that you have done a lot of testing. It seems that your Old Inspiron is 100 Mbps. Please could you do a test?: a) Custom built desktop running Win 7 x64 seems to have no problem (supposedly with a Gigabit NIC) b) Alienware M17xx Connect a) to b) with Cat6 Xover cable. Please check the speed in the Taskbar and transfer a big file, like 1GB to 2 GB and monitor the speed in the Task Manager-Network. The file to be transferred must not be compressed or in a compressed folder and the destination folder mustn’t be compressed as well (the compression affects the performance). Three points about your comments. 1) the issues on negotiation of speeds between Switches and NICs difficult to troubleshoot and there’s no standard so far: it depends on many circumstances. Please see this link as an example: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps700/products_tech_note09186a00800a7af0.shtml. 2) The conversion between bits and bytes is roughly about a factor of 9. If you have a 6Mbps Internet, it translates around the 600 KBytes that you may see in the Task Manager. In all the cases this is below the threshold of the problem and 3) If a computer doesn’t appear at Microsoft Windows Hardware Developer Central at http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hcl/default.mspx it is either in the process of testing by Microsoft or with issues: in such case, the problem should be addressed by the OEM. Alfredo ArizaletaDisclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no express or implied warranties or rights.

I don't have a xover cable to hand, but I get the same problem connecting the laptop to the NAS over a Netgear GS605 switch. The desktop doesn't have the same problem and can access the NAS at the maximum speed that the disks run at. I have also tried the laptop and desktop on the same switch (and nothing else) and get the same problem. When I manually set EVERY machine to 100MBPS I managed to increase the network speed to a whopping 350K/s as opposed to 150K/s. I think you've missed a major point alfredo though. Transfer speeds over my internet connection which uses the same hardware is outperforming home network speeds by a factor of 4. This is exactly the same whether I use the WLAN or the LAN. So there is clearly something treating intranet packets differently. I suspect there is a security setting somewhere that isn't used when accessing the internet, but is used for intranet transfers that is hindering network performance considerably. You would appear to be right that neither network card is on the compatability list, but I also note there isn't very many mobile network cards in that list, and neither are there very many integrated cards on that list. It still doesn't explain why two seperate cards are having the exact same identical problem. I find it hard to believe 2 cards would have the exact same problem when they use different protocols. The common denominator iswindows 7 in both cases. All I am asking for is someone to acknowledge there is clearly a problem as this is not an isolated case, and to look into fixing this as a matter of urgency. I'm certainly not recommending Win7 to anyone I work with, and when my employers ask for recommendations from me being one of the more tech savvy end users that gets asked on a regular basis which systems we should be looking at implementing this will certainly not be it. I will still be recommending to stick with XP SP3 because at least we can get some work done.

Hi NAJ Walrus, In general, I could acknowledge that there's an issue with transmission speeds, but I ask you to consider that could be an issue of Hardware compatibility, including the drivers. The fact that a combination HW-SW(OS) worked with in the past is not an assurance that the combination HW-SW(NewOS) will work perfectly. As I commented before, there’s compatibility problems between hardware components acknowledged by Cisco Support and others. So if the hardware is not doing a good connection, the OS will be only reflecting the behavior of the hardware. In some cases compatibility tools must be run, such as Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. About your specific answers: Internet speed: “In all the cases this is below the threshold of the problem” Why, the slowest transmission speed when all NICs agree in at 10Mbps Half Duplex, which is over the 6Mbps of your Internet connection. Compatibility: Who’s to be compatible with?, the OS manufacturer, Microsoft for all accounts, or the Original Equipment Manufacturer who makes the hardware and build the drivers using many software tools, beside the Hardware Development Kits provided by Microsoft? Using the XOver cable isolates some networking elements. Setting the Tx Speed to any value overrides the speed negotiation between the cards. Going Back to XP SP3: There no warranty that you may find the drivers for the new cards that you are including in your system. There’s many factors involved and that there’s important to deal with every specific problem. I could only help to find a solution. If, at the end, you think that there’s problem with the OS, please contact Microsoft Support at http://support.microsoft.com/ Alfredo ArizaletaDisclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no express or implied warranties or rights.

Alfredo you still aren't seeing the main point of my post. Internet packets are clearly being treated differently. The wireless router noted above is the gateway to the internet, it is only a 10/100 router and is then connected to one of the gigabit routers if you need the full info on that. 1) Transfer over gigabit connection to router and out to the internet is 700K/s max speed for my broadband at around 6-7 MBPs. 2) Using WLAN direct to wireless router, again max speed around 700K/s max speed for the broadband. 3) Transfer over gigabit connection to machines on gigabit network, either as the only machines on a physically seperated switch or as part of the original network is 150K/s (increased to 350 if dropped to 100MBPs full or half duplex manually on all machines). 4) Transfer speeds over WLAN to wireless router to any intranet machine either directly connected to wireless router 10/100 ports or through the wireless router and then through the gigabit switch gets 150K/s max speed no matter what duplex speeds set for the other machines. You will notice that the hardware involved has HIGHER transfer speeds for internet bound packets than for intranet bound packets. This is two different NICs and two different network protocols. The only common denominator is the OS. Can you please start listing security settings (or anything else that is done to intranet only packets) I can alter for intranet packets so I can start switching them off one by one and see if any of those are interfering. If I find one I'll inform you which one is the guilty culprit. It may well be the same for everyone, and if I don't find a positive at least thats something ticked off the list.