Older devices have MUCH slower download than before upgrading pfSense device and child switch
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I'm a long-time pfSense user who recently did a major upgrade from a Netgate SG4860 with a Netgear GS108 1Gb/s "1st level" switch and Cat-5e cabling to a Netgate 6100S Max with a Netgear MS108 2.5Gb/s .
(By "1st level switch", I mean the first switch in the network which connects the Netgate entry device via multiple trunks to the main house switches on the other side of my home) .
I did those upgrades because I was dealing with issues with the SG4860 no longer being supported and also because a new ISP in town is now offering bargain prices for fiber optic to the door with cheap internet fiber from 750 Mb/s up to 5 Mb/s. But I haven't yet switched from my old 1 Gb/s Xfinity ISP so the external ISP service entry is still exactly the same as before.
After working through various glitches during the transition between these two sets of edge devices, I thought everything was initially going well.
But I recently realized that my older machines on this network are seeing MUCH slower download speeds with the newer, faster infrastructure than I had with the older infrastructure. From Speedtest.Net tests today, one of my newer Lenovo computers is seeing around 950 Mb/s down and 42 Mb/s up. But an older Lenovo laptop - which used to see much closer to the same speed as the newer computers - is now seeing only 95 Mb/s down and 42 Mb/s up.
All machines are connected via new Cat-6 patch cords. The older Lenovo has the most recent available driver for its Intel 82579LM NIC; but that driver was still from 2015.
I seem to be seeing the same problem on an Alienware desktop with an old hardwired Intel NIC, my older DirecTV DVRs, etc. I replaced the on-motherboard NIC on the Alienware with a current USB network NIC and that same machine then also began showing full-speed 950 Mb/s.
I first thought it might be an MTU size issue. But I looked into MTU sizes on multiple machines today and all test machines involved are using an MTU of 1,500. I've also tried doing a Windows "Network Reset", then resetting the TCP/IP stack ("netsh int ip reset" first, then "netsh wisock reset" on the older laptop. No help there.
Does anyone have any ideas what other changes I can make to get my older machines to have at least reasonable download speeds on this new infrastructure?
Does pfSense have any statistics that might reveal the bottleneck that affects only the older devices? Are there pfSense configuration settings that may help with this issue?
Thanks!
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@briddle said in Older devices have MUCH slower download than before upgrading pfSense device and child switch:
is now seeing only 95 Mb/s down
That says there is very likely something in the route linked at 100M. Some switch port, maybe a bad cable etc. Maybe the client devices directly.
But that number is too close to 100M to rule out. Check all the links between the 6100 and client.
