WHY? Slow LAN speeds make no sense!

[corksil]

Hello everyone, I have recently been setting up a network around my house, and clearing out some computers to format them. I transfer files through the network onto eachother, therein lies the problem.

I am getting really slow speeds, around a few MB/s when I transfer files. It is an ordinary LAN, two computers, connected to a router via ethernet cables. I can see the computers in My Network Places and access files off of them and all, but when I try to transfer files, like a folder of music, it takes longer than I think it should. From what I know, ethernet cables should yield about 100MB/s connection speeds, probably more like 90MB/s after technicalities... Why is it that I only get 10MB/s maximum? It makes no sense to me, I've used an FTP program, and the highest speeds I've gotten are 10MB/s.

The same thing with WLAN, I'm on a G Network, and I get speeds of about 3MB/s? What's up with that, as far as I can tell, something is very wrong. I did a search of the forum, and yielded nothing, but it seems this would be a common question. Thanks for the help in advance.

Both computers are running WindozeXP, the router is a Linksys WRT54GX4 (SRX400.)

[Byte 2.0]

Actually 10 megs a second is on the high side, 12 in theory is the max.

I am normally happy if i get 8 megs a second transfer.

it is 100mb/sec instead of 100MB

If I am incorrect, i am sure someone will correct me soon.

Your wireless G at 3Megs a sec seems slow, should be around 5 megs a second. However high encrpytion can slow that down some.

[kilgoretrout]

You are right; networking speeds are usually reported in bits per second instead of bytes per second. Standard 10/100 ethernet is in bits per second, i.e. 100mb/sec /8 = 12.5MB/sec.

[mbossman2]

a couple of things might be affecting your speed:

as Byte points out, encryption may be the culprit.

second, check to see if you have some uninvited guests on your wireless connection. If any of those are 11b clients, their existence forces your 11g wireless connection down to 11b speeds (of which 3mb/s is likely). To solve this problem turn on your WEP/WPA, throw up some MAC Filters and, if possible, lock your AP/router into 11g mode only. that should keep out the 11b performance vampires.

and finally it is megabits per second not megabytes...