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    Slow throughput on 50meg connection

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
    13 Posts 6 Posters 4.8k Views
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    • M
      marvosa
      last edited by

      I can tell you that my PFsense box is running on less than half your specs and pushing twice your bandwidth (100 Mbit business line) like a champ.

      My specs:

      P4-2.4 Ghz
      40 GB HDD
      512 MB ram
      2 - Intel 100 Mbit NICs (1 - onboard, 1 - PCI)

      Anything is possible as they say, so I'm leaving a remote chance that your iso was corrupted while downloading, but I'm about 98% sure the issue is not the OS.  There are just too many rock solid installs out there.

      Things to check:

      • Verify you haven't misconfigured the traffic shaper

      • You are running HAVP, which means all your traffic is going through a proxy and being written to temp file, which is then held in the proxy until it is verified to be clean by the scanning thread.  This is going to slow you down by design.  Having said that, is HAVP alone cutting your bandwidth from 50 Mbit to 8 Mbit, not sure, but since you have it installed, it's just one more thing to troubleshoot.  I'd suggest uninstalling it.

      • Are you running Squid in conjunction with HAVP?  Verify bandwidth throttling has not been configured

      • Try different NIC's

      • Try a different machine altogether

      • check your cabling (replace custom with pre-made)

      • check for irregular light patterns @ layer 2… this can indicate a bad cable or a failing NIC

      • Probably not the case, but worth a look… verify the PC does not have any QOS/Packet Prioritzing software running locally.

      Personally, I would disable HAVP and Squid (if installed), re-download a fresh copy of the 64 bit Live CD with installer, re-install, and re-do your bandwidth test with no packages installed and no shaper configured.  Barring a hardware issue, I'm betting you'll see your full bandwidth, which will verify a configuration issue or HAVP is crippling your speeds.

      PFsense can handle a 50 Mbit connection without blinking.  I find it very hard to believe PFsense itself is involved here in any way.

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      • stephenw10S
        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
        last edited by

        That sort of throttling I too would look for a duplex mismatch first. How did you test for a mismatch? Is that 8Mbits or 8Mbytes? Either way whatever your hardware is if it can take 8GB or RAM it should have no difficulties. Please give more details of your setup.
        Has issue this just started? I see you've been running pfSense in the past.

        Steve

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        • A
          AIMS-Informatique
          last edited by

          Have a look on your PFTOP while downloading…

          Throughput comparison of a cheap design (APU): APU 2GB + 32GB SSD = top up at 100Mbit/s (8MB/s) on IPSec VPN (AES128) interface. The link was a 200Mb Fiber.

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          • johnpozJ
            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
            last edited by

            I am running pfsense in a vm on a hp microserver n40l so not a lot of umph there.  And I have no issues with my 50/10 comcast internet connection.  I actually see 57 to 58ish down and 11 to 12ish up..

            I have not done anything with backend configurations or tweaking.. Out of the box running 2.1.4 i386

            Downloads I see 6.8 to 6.9MBps – so clearly rocking the full pipe..  With only 8mbps I too would look to a duplex mismatch sort of error or only coming up at 10mbit on the connection.

            You clearly should not have to tweak anything to get 50mbps through that box without any problems.

            An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
            If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
            Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
            SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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            • D
              devnull1369
              last edited by

              Thanks for the replies I'll try the i386 version (was on 64) and I'll report back.

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              • A
                AIMS-Informatique
                last edited by

                You won't have been able to boot correctly if your CPU were 32bits.

                Look at your speed and duplex (both LAN / WAN) in Stauts -> Interface.

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                • D
                  devnull1369
                  last edited by

                  I've quadruple checked ALL interfaces to 100/full on both pfsense and switches and so I installed the 32 bit and here's the latest.

                  From the console I'm now getting full bandwidth.

                  From console:
                  Retrieving speedtest.net configuration…
                  Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
                  Testing from .....
                  Selecting best server based on latency...
                  Hosted by TRANSTELCO (Nogales) [108.03 km]: 22.223 ms
                  Testing download speed….....................................
                  Download: 47.11 Mbits/s
                  Testing upload speed..................................................
                  Upload: 33.66 Mbits/s

                  From a client on the internal interface:
                  Hosted by TRANSTELCO (Nogales) [108.03 km]: 22.223 ms
                  Download 53.64 Mbits/s
                  Upload 11.30 Mbits/s

                  Okay, so what have I learned?  It would appear the 32 bit version likes my hardware more than the 64 bit?  maybe?

                  Comments? Questions?  I've got many.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    Can you give us more details on your hardware? Years ago the 64bit build may have been less well tested but today there are probably more people running that than 32bit.

                    Steve

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                    • D
                      devnull1369
                      last edited by

                      I'd be happy to just give me a couple of days.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • A
                        AIMS-Informatique
                        last edited by

                        32/64 NIC drivers ?

                        Sometimes, you could have trouble selecting "Autodetect" in speed and duplex, depdending on which hardware couple you are using (PF <-> Switch). Sometimes you will have to force it manually.

                        Does a 64bit NIC driver couldinterfer with speed an duplex autodetect ?

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                        • J
                          jasonlitka
                          last edited by

                          How did you run speedtest.net from the command line?

                          I can break anything.

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                          • johnpozJ
                            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                            last edited by

                            [2.1.4-RELEASE][root@pfsense]/root(1): cd /tmp

                            [2.1.4-RELEASE][root@pfsense]/tmp(2): wget -O speedtest-cli https://raw.github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/master/speedtest_cli.py –no-check-certificate

                            [2.1.4-RELEASE][root@pfsense]/tmp(3): chmod +x speedtest-cli

                            [2.1.4-RELEASE][root@pfsense]/tmp(4): ./speedtest-cli
                            Retrieving speedtest.net configuration…
                            Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
                            Testing from Comcast Cable (24.13.xx.xx)...
                            Selecting best server based on latency...
                            Hosted by ServerCentral (Chicago, IL) [40.85 km]: 20.297 ms
                            Testing download speed….....................................
                            Download: 56.79 Mbits/s
                            Testing upload speed..................................................
                            Upload: 11.13 Mbits/s

                            An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                            If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                            Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                            SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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