Slow Data Transfer is not Always caused by the Network
Slow data transfers are sometimes caused by a slow computer. Determine if the computer is the reason by comparing the transfer speed with a different computer connected on the same switch port. If the speed is the same, the problem is your network. If you get faster data transfers with a different computer then the problem is the computer.
A computer could be slow because of various reasons:
A bad network card. Troubleshoot: Swap the network card and test the data transfers afterwards.
The computer is outdated and it runs software that needs more resources. Troubleshoot: change the computer.
Slow hard-drive. The hard-drive will always be the computer’s bottle neck. It is the slowest part of a desktop computer. Old hard-disks are very often seen in new computers. Hard-disk fragmentation is a frequent reason for slow computers. Troubleshoot: Defragment often your hard-drive and reserve a 25% free space on the drive.
The computer might be infected with a virus or a Trojan. Troubleshoot: scan the computer for viruses. On a Windows machine run the command “netstat -a -b” to see what ports are being used and which program is using them. Use a network sniffer and monitor the network activity on the specific computer.
The transfer is intermittently slow, check what background processes are using the CPU, Memory, and hard-drives. Windows Vista can sometimes be a resources hog by allocating too many resources for background processes such as indexing and running the antispyware. Antivirus or other antimalware can consume a lot of the computers’ resources. Troubleshoot: Change the schedule for maintenance tasks to a time when you are not using the computer. Check what other programs are running in the background and configure accordingly. Some antivirus programs enable scanning the network drives by default.
A slow network printer. A slow network printer can be caused by the power save feature. If you use the printer very often you might consider turning off the power save.
A slow Network Attached Storage device. A slow NAS could be caused by improper SAMBA configuration or a disk power save feature. The power save feature is fairly easy to fix, just disable it if you find that you are using the drive very often. The SAMBA tune up is more difficult and usually it is complicated to have terminal access to the device itself. Many manufacturers do not allow direct access to the OS. SAMBA is a free implementation of Microsoft’s SMB protocol. SAMBA, SMB and CIFS offer file and print sharing services for Windows and Linux/Unix machines
This article is part of a five posts series regarding Network Troubleshooting.
