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    loss of speed with pfsense 2.5.1 using Intel(R) PRO/1000 PCI-Express Network Driver

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    • S
      SteveITS Galactic Empire @gstlouis
      last edited by

      @gstlouis Does Status/Interfaces show any errors? 1000baseT <full-duplex> ? Try changing patch cables, or putting a switch in between pfSense and the router.

      Pre-2.7.2/23.09: Only install packages for your version, or risk breaking it. Select your branch in System/Update/Update Settings.
      When upgrading, allow 10-15 minutes to restart, or more depending on packages and device speed.
      Upvote 👍 helpful posts!

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      • stephenw10S
        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator @gstlouis
        last edited by

        @gstlouis said in loss of speed with pfsense 2.5.1 using Intel(R) PRO/1000 PCI-Express Network Driver:

        If I have it connected directly, I can get close to 6 megs.

        Is that with the 'modem' in bridge mode or is it in router mode at that point?

        If the latter try testing with it in bridge mode still using a directly connected client.

        Steve

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        • ?
          A Former User @gstlouis
          last edited by

          @gstlouis said in loss of speed with pfsense 2.5.1 using Intel(R) PRO/1000 PCI-Express Network Driver:

          The processor is always 90% idle, MBUF Usage at 0%, RAM is good and everything I can check is fine.

          90% ? It is very possible that this is the problem

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          • stephenw10S
            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
            last edited by

            No that's expected. 10Mbps is nothing for that CPU so 10% usage is probably just the dashboard code.

            Steve

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            • ?
              A Former User @stephenw10
              last edited by

              @stephenw10, 90% usage or free?

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              • G
                gstlouis @stephenw10
                last edited by

                @stephenw10
                you are correct, to eliminate if the bridge mode on that modem is the problem. I'll be doing this next

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                  gstlouis @A Former User
                  last edited by gstlouis

                  @silence
                  really? I used top to get that view. but if I look at the dashboard it shows the CPU barely working a sweat. I didnt take the pic fast enough but its more along 10 to 11% peak then 3%

                  Screen Shot 2021-12-29 at 3.43.21 PM.png

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                  • G
                    gstlouis @stephenw10
                    last edited by gstlouis

                    @stephenw10
                    so I did pppoe directly from the modem to my mac and I can get the correct speeds. IT was flaying at close to my whopping 6 megs

                    Screen Shot 2021-12-29 at 4.37.43 PM.png

                    This is around the speeds I want to try to attain.

                    It looks to be my router. Any idea or settings that would slow this down? Its a basic setup with a DDNS and some rules for incoming git repo, cams etc.

                    I do have another router with pfsense (do not remember if same hardware but I'll check). I'll try this router as well to see if the speeds are degraded as well... a full 2 megs degrade feels like a lot.

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                    • J
                      jsmiddleton4 @gstlouis
                      last edited by

                      @gstlouis
                      “ Any idea or settings that would slow this down?”

                      That the modem needs to be configured to be a very dumb device and the PFSense router doing the heavy lifting.

                      Connecting directly the modem with your MAC just tells you the modem is still doing the heavy lifting.

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                      • J
                        jsmiddleton4 @gstlouis
                        last edited by

                        @gstlouis

                        Might need to set MTU to 1492.

                        https://www.metageek.com/training/resources/use-router-with-dsl/

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                        • stephenw10S
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                          last edited by

                          The modem should be doing the same thing in both situations. The PPPoE client does the wrok and that's running either on the Mac or pfSense.
                          pfSense will set an MTU of 1492 automatically for a PPPoE link but it's worth checking that. If you are seeing packet fragmentation it could well lead to the sort of reduction you're seeing.

                          Another thing you can test here is running the speedtest-cli client on pfSense itself. That would show up a LAN side issue, though that's very unlikely.
                          That is done at the command line like:

                          [2.6.0-BETA][admin@cedev-3.stevew.lan]/root: pkg install py38-speedtest-cli
                          Updating pfSense-core repository catalogue...
                          pfSense-core repository is up to date.
                          Updating pfSense repository catalogue...
                          pfSense repository is up to date.
                          All repositories are up to date.
                          The following 1 package(s) will be affected (of 0 checked):
                          
                          New packages to be INSTALLED:
                          	py38-speedtest-cli: 2.1.3 [pfSense]
                          
                          Number of packages to be installed: 1
                          
                          38 KiB to be downloaded.
                          
                          Proceed with this action? [y/N]: y
                          [1/1] Fetching py38-speedtest-cli-2.1.3.pkg: 100%   38 KiB  39.0kB/s    00:01    
                          Checking integrity... done (0 conflicting)
                          [1/1] Installing py38-speedtest-cli-2.1.3...
                          [1/1] Extracting py38-speedtest-cli-2.1.3: 100%
                          [2.6.0-BETA][admin@cedev-3.stevew.lan]/root: rehash
                          [2.6.0-BETA][admin@cedev-3.stevew.lan]/root: speedtest-cli
                          Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
                          Testing from Plusnet (xx.xx.xx.xx)...
                          Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
                          Selecting best server based on ping...
                          Hosted by Vodafone UK (Manchester) [250.93 km]: 21.236 ms
                          Testing download speed................................................................................
                          Download: 61.65 Mbit/s
                          Testing upload speed.....................................................................................................
                          .Upload: 18.89 Mbit/s
                          

                          Steve

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                            gstlouis @stephenw10
                            last edited by gstlouis

                            @stephenw10 @jsmiddleton4

                            Thank you for your comments.

                            So I did change the MTU, even though Steve says it'll change itself. There was no difference from when I did the speed test. I even tried 1450 MTU just for giggles with no diff.

                            I installed speedtest-cli, super cool, thanks for the rehash command, didn't know that!!

                            What was very interesting is while downloading the speedtest pkg it was pulling at around 7megs!!
                            Screen Shot 2021-12-30 at 12.25.33 PM.png

                            speedtestcli

                            Hosted by Convergia Networks Inc (Pointe-Claire, QC) [196.32 km]: 52.136 ms
                            Testing download speed................................................................................
                            Download: 5.77 Mbit/s
                            Testing upload speed.........................................................................
                            Upload: 0.94 Mbit/s
                            

                            Now that is awesome. A little hard to beleive because I do not think Bell has me a profile that is 7/1 megs but from the cli it says it was downloading at that speed when installing speedtest cli

                            This being said, there has to be something going on from the LAN perspective? I know Steve mentioned this... I don't know how I would start getting into that, but I will start searching online while I can breath and kids are sleeping and my drink has ice.

                            some say this could be HD read write speed. Im on an ssd 16gig

                            [2.5.1-RELEASE][root@router.home]/root: egrep 'da[0-9]|cd[0-9]' /var/run/dmesg.boot
                            ada0 at ahcich0 bus 0 scbus0 target 0 lun 0
                            ada0: <Kston 16GB Q0927A> ACS-2 ATA SATA 3.x device
                            ada0: Serial Number 201906280650
                            ada0: 300.000MB/s transfers (SATA 2.x, UDMA6, PIO 512bytes)
                            ada0: Command Queueing enabled
                            ada0: 15272MB (31277232 512 byte sectors)
                            

                            @stephenw10
                            i wasnt sure about packet fragmentation comment. I do not see packet loss but if i should be looking somewhere else do lmk

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                            • J
                              jsmiddleton4 @gstlouis
                              last edited by jsmiddleton4

                              @gstlouis

                              Just making sure, your tests that show speeds being slow, are you doing so via a wireless device?

                              I wish I could give you some of my bandwidth.

                              Everything I’ve read on DSL Modems when attaching a separate router is the modem needs to be in Transparent Bridge Mode.

                              https://johnpoelstra.com/centurylink-actiontec-c1000a-transparent-bridging/

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                                gstlouis @jsmiddleton4
                                last edited by

                                @jsmiddleton4
                                reading that article now

                                yes, I do the test via WIFI, but I've tried wired to my switch. But now that I'm doubting it, I'm going to plug my mac into the router port itself to make sure.

                                Also something I found cool. I removed the Bell modem, called HH1000 modem, from bridge mode for testing to speed again. Then I plugged my router into it and it authenticated. I literally have two WIFI, the bell modem broadcasting and one of my access points fed from my router. So basically two internal networks... weird, but cool because I can play in both. lol

                                I have the same speeds after plugging my mac wired into the router yes.

                                haha thanks for the offer. They say fibe will arrive within 2022, so fingers crossed. loosing 2 megs on a 50 meg line is neglegiable, but I do like to understand things and understanidng why a 2 meg loss for pfsense is a good Tshooting practice. while my time permits of course...

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                                • G gstlouis referenced this topic on
                                • J
                                  jsmiddleton4 @gstlouis
                                  last edited by

                                  @gstlouis

                                  Wifi won’t be as fast as wired due to the way wifi works.

                                  https://www.quora.com/Is-it-normal-for-a-WiFi-modem-connection-to-give-half-the-download-speed-of-a-wired-connection?share=1

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                                  • G
                                    gstlouis @jsmiddleton4
                                    last edited by

                                    @jsmiddleton4
                                    regardless, I've tried wired, more than once. Even my torrents files do not peak to what the router can hit on speed.

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                                    • stephenw10S
                                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                      last edited by

                                      At <10Mbps I wouldn't expect wifi to make a noticeable difference. Unless it's 802.11b maybe! 😉

                                      Might be time to grab a packet capture and see if there are retransmissions or fragments.

                                      Speedtest-cli has never been the most accurate thing IMO. It averages the output. You might want to check the traffic graphs at the same time you're testing.

                                      Although the total throughput isn't an issue here you might also try setting net.isr.dispatch to deferred. See: https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/hardware/tune.html#pppoe-with-multi-queue-nics

                                      Steve

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                                        gstlouis @stephenw10
                                        last edited by

                                        @stephenw10

                                        I fixed it! This is thanks to another thread on this forum you replied to Steve. Man, I wish I had you on speed dial!

                                        You had mentioned to some dude online who was having LAN to WAN speed issues
                                        slow-lan-speeds-but-correct-wan-speed

                                        For giggles I said what the hell, in case I fiddled with rules or config that caused this slow speed. I setup a LAN2, copy pasted some rules so LAN2 can hit WAN, or LAN2 to really, setup dhcp on it and speed test are now at par with the WAN. I got 2 more megs in my network. lol I'm pumped.

                                        I need to understand why my LAN1 is loosing my 2 megs. Slowly, I'll apply my rule sets and see if anything degrades and go from there. I'm very curious and will paste info for anybody out there

                                        Anyway, thanks for your time and Happy New Year.

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                                        • J
                                          jsmiddleton4 @gstlouis
                                          last edited by

                                          @gstlouis

                                          Congrats.

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                                          • G
                                            gstlouis @jsmiddleton4
                                            last edited by

                                            @jsmiddleton4
                                            thanks
                                            I appreciated your input too!

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