Download speed varies by OS after setting up pfSense router with 2.4.5.
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Hi everyone, I'm about to lose my mind with this bizarre issue I'm having. I'm fairly new to pfSense (it's roughly my first full week) and I have a fairly standard router running on a little desktop box with a gigabit nic. I was doing some speed tests today on different machines and I noticed that my windows machines were getting roughly ~130-140mbps down while my linux or iOS/Android devices were getting ~220mbps (the same as the router). I have absolutely no idea why this would be the case, but the issue has only cropped up since I installed the pfSense router. Just to try to eliminate some variables, I've done the test against multiple speed test sites, I've attempted the same test on a safe-mode windows box with the firewall and AV off, and I booted a live Linux image on the same machine and found that I got the full down speed (~220) running Linux but it was back to half when I swapped back to Windows. I'm not utilizing any traffic shaping that I am aware of and the only real package I am running is pfBlockerNG. Does anyone have any idea what might be happening? I appreciate any help!
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What browser were you using to do your speed test with? Have you tried different browsers?
Also tuning could be an issue.. Give me a sec, I think went over this with another user..
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@johnpoz I've attempted the tests with Edge and Firefox. And sure, just let me know.
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Yeah it was the same sort of thing were windows wasn't giving him the speed he should be be getting - but having a problem finding it now.. It wasn't that long ago.. Maybe it was over on reddit - give me a bit.. Had to do with recv window and tuning... Give me a bit, if can't find it will recreate the info..
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@johnpoz Thanks! I appreciate the assistance!
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BTW - your not running any sort of security software on windows are you, antivirus, 3rd party firewall sort of stuff... Now I can not for the life of me where I posted that - arrghh..
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@johnpoz No, just the standard Windows Defender. I got the same results with it turned off as well.
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Can you post the output of
$ netsh interface tcp show global Querying active state... TCP Global Parameters ---------------------------------------------- Receive-Side Scaling State : enabled Receive Window Auto-Tuning Level : normal Add-On Congestion Control Provider : default ECN Capability : enabled RFC 1323 Timestamps : disabled Initial RTO : 1000 Receive Segment Coalescing State : enabled Non Sack Rtt Resiliency : disabled Max SYN Retransmissions : 4 Fast Open : enabled Fast Open Fallback : enabled HyStart : enabled Pacing Profile : offRun
netsh interface tcp show globalIn a command prompt - prob has to do with your recv window, scaling and or autotuning
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@johnpoz said in Download speed varies by OS after setting up pfSense router with 2.4.5.:
netsh interface tcp show global
On the Windows box?
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yeah on the windows box, call up a cmd prompt and run that and post the output like I did
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TCP Global Parameters ---------------------------------------------- Receive-Side Scaling State : disabled Receive Window Auto-Tuning Level : disabled Add-On Congestion Control Provider : default ECN Capability : disabled RFC 1323 Timestamps : disabled Initial RTO : 1000 Receive Segment Coalescing State : enabled Non Sack Rtt Resiliency : disabled Max SYN Retransmissions : 4 Fast Open : enabled Fast Open Fallback : enabled HyStart : enabled Pacing Profile : off -
yeah your scaling is disable, and your auto-tuning is off..
Do this..
From an elevated cmd prompt, run cmd as admin type
netsh interface tcp set global rss=enabled
and then
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=enabledThen show your globals again
netsh interface tcp show globalyou should see
Receive-Side Scaling State : enabled
Receive Window Auto-Tuning Level : normalThen do your speed tests again
edit: don't worry about being able to put it back, its simple as same command with disabled, etc. And we have post of what your settings were already ;)
I would show you the difference on mine - but I have 5 people streaming off my plex currently, and that is taxing my connection already ;)
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@johnpoz Yep! That did it! Just so I understand better for the future, is this something related to the innate configuration of pfSense and some of my devices are just already configured to work that way and the Windows devices are not by default?
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no not anything to do with pfsense - its windows thing, autotuning should be on by default with scaling - not sure why yours was disabled...
Had you run any sort of "tweaking" software or anything? I will have to do a bit of research - but I am pretty sure that is suppose to be on by default.
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@johnpoz Huh, okay, I must have just uncovered that during all the testing and stuff. I really appreciate the help!
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I know I just went over this somewhere in the last few weeks at most -- killing me that cant find where that was, might of been reddit or other forums I frequent ;)
Glad you got it sorted... You might want to turn on ECN as well.
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Was this windows 10 an upgrade from say 7? Or clean install?
Either way, when you find that your not getting what you expect for full speed, could to check that is enabled.. Here is some info about scaling..
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Clean install. The weird thing is that it is that way on multiple machines, but I suppose that might just be a fluke.
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hmmm - yeah pretty sure its suppose to be default.. Odd - will have to do some research on why it would be off out of the box.
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Thanks again and yeah I'd definitely be interested to know why they are that way.
