Why is the Network Test So Slow on My Laptop?
Laptop network speeds are usually limited by the PCMCIA bus speed. You may have a 100 MBps network card, but the PCMCIA bus will not allow transmission rates much above 10 MBps.
How Can I Get the Network Test to Run Through a Firewall?
You may have to set up a rule allowing access on the port used by the network test. If you don't have direct control over the firewall, you'll have to contact your network administrator. The port number used by the test can be found in the network test dialog.
Why is the Client Machine Giving Me the Error Message "Connect Failed"?
The most likely causes are:
- In the PerformanceTest Advanced network test window (on the client/sending PC), the IP address entered is incorrect or the port numbers on the client and server PC's do not match. The same port number must be used on both PC's. The IP address of the server PC, must be entered on the client PC.
- A firewall (eg. Microsoft XP firewall or Norton Internet Security Firewall) is turned on for one or both of the PC's LAN connections and this is blocking a connection. Solution: modify the firewall rules to allow this address, port and protocol through the firewall or switch the firewall off (if appropriate).
- The network cards are not working. You should check in device manager that your Network cards are shown as "This device is working properly".
Note: To test connectivity between the Client PC and the Server PC try the following: Open a "Command" window on the Client side PC by selecting "Start", "Run", type in "Command". Once you have the "Command" window open, type "ping <IP-Destination>", substituting <IP-Destination> for the IP address of the Server side PC.
Why Does The Client Machine Stop Receiving Data?
When the Client computer graph shows that nearly the entire bandwidth is utilized for the full test duration of the send session and the receiver shows that after a number of seconds into the test a drop from nearly 100% utilization to 0, the most likely cause is that a router between the PC's is dropping UDP packets.
UDP is not rate adaptive (basically packets are pushed out as quickly the PC can push them out with no consideration whether the packet was received), unlike TCP. A router between the PC's could become congested and hence start dropping the UDP packets, and remain congested until the end of the test (This is of course more likely if the router is a lower end router or there are other users on the network). Depending on your router, you may be able to get UDP statistics on the 'in' and the 'out' ports to confirm this. You could also try connecting the 2 PC's directly (depending on what you are trying to test).