Help with Vista network speed issues

[Admin]

So I got a new laptop and it came with Vista on it and I have to admit that for the most part it's been pretty nice but I'm having an issue with my wired internet speed and with local file transfers between 2 computers running Vista (I also installed Vista on my desktop just for consistency).

My internet plan is 18MB down and 1.5 up and using wired and wireless connections on my laptop and running a speed test on speedtest.net these are my results:

Wireless

Wired

I am running TVersity on my desktop and use it to share files with my xbox360 to watch movies on the tv and it's a wired connection only and it's so slow that the movies often hang for 5-15 seconds before resuming.

I've tried disabling IPV6, disabling autotuning, using vista basic for the theme, I've updated the drivers for my NIC, I've rolled back the drivers for my NIC, disabled windows firewall, uninstalled windows live onecare, and probably several other things that I can't remember off the top of my head and none of them have made a difference. I get almost exactly the same wired speed on my desktop as I've posted above with my laptop.

Can anyone here provide some insight into this? I'm about 24 hours away from wiping both of these machines and going back to XP SP3 which worked quite well on my previous laptop and on the same desktop that is now running Vista.

[chillzatl]

So I got a new laptop and it came with Vista on it and I have to admit that for the most part it's been pretty nice but I'm having an issue with my wired internet speed and with local file transfers between 2 computers running Vista (I also installed Vista on my desktop just for consistency).

My internet plan is 18MB down and 1.5 up and using wired and wireless connections on my laptop and running a speed test on speedtest.net these are my results:

Wireless

Wired

I am running TVersity on my desktop and use it to share files with my xbox360 to watch movies on the tv and it's a wired connection only and it's so slow that the movies often hang for 5-15 seconds before resuming.

I've tried disabling IPV6, disabling autotuning, using vista basic for the theme, I've updated the drivers for my NIC, I've rolled back the drivers for my NIC, disabled windows firewall, uninstalled windows live onecare, and probably several other things that I can't remember off the top of my head and none of them have made a difference. I get almost exactly the same wired speed on my desktop as I've posted above with my laptop.

Can anyone here provide some insight into this? I'm about 24 hours away from wiping both of these machines and going back to XP SP3 which worked quite well on my previous laptop and on the same desktop that is now running Vista.

I've never heard of any issues with internet speeds being slow on vista, but the issues between other systems can be caused by differential file compression. To disable this go to control panel, programs and features, turn windows features on or off, and find remote differential compression. You may also see a few other things in there you would like to turn off as well. I tend to always disable indexing, as I know where my files are and don't need Windows (or googles stupid toolbar) constantly chewing on my system in an effort to know where everything is.

[chillzatl]

oh, another thing I didn't think of. This laptop could be one based on an Nvidia chipset and use an Nvidia based NIC, in which case it will have a firewall built into it and that firewall is a PITA. You might want to investigate that and if so all firewall functionality can be disabled via the software app that comes with it.

[Admin]

Thanks for the tips! I forgot to update this thread but as it turns out the speed issue was because I had a linksys 10/100 switch that is either defective or I simply cannot figure out how to use it because it was limiting me to 10MB. I swapped it out for a 10/100 linksys hub and I'm getting full speeds wired and playing video through tversity on the xbox 360 is working perfectly again.

Will turning off differential file compression help with transfer speeds from the local disk to an external usb drive because I still haven't been able to get over 13MB/sec on file transfers on the desktop between the SATA drive and an external usb 2.0 drive and I'd assume I should get faster speeds than that, right?

[Swish]

Somewhat on topic, my wired "plug" doesn't work anymore. But on topic, when it did it was slower than my wireless card which was frustrating because I would plug in to ramp up my speed for watching live stuff. Of course, all this is moot now because the computer has gone to hell.