Modern day network cards are rich with features, a lot of these features are designed to optimise network traffic for certain conditions.
The irony is that these same performance settings on most networks cause serious network traffic issues such as dropping network packets frequently and grinding windows servers to an almost standstill when copying large amounts of data.
So what the answer? it’s simple really turn these features off you will be amazed at the results.
Note: It is also possible that you have a duplicate MAC address upon the network, this can cause network packet loss between two machines that have got duplicate MAC addresses.
Before you start
This article presumes the following:Your are using IP version 4 not IP version 6
- You do not specifically need any of these features for a network requirement
- You understand that you will need to roll out these settings across the entire network
If you are unsure of what this article is suggesting then please take advice from your network administrator before proceeding.
Make sure your network switch port and network adapter are seeing the correct connection speed. On most networks these days this will be one of the following:
- 10000/FULL
- 1000/FULL
- 100/FULL
If it is anything else it is highly likely your switch port is mis-configured or network adapter is mis-configured for Duplex or Speed.
The Solution
Within the windows network card settings for all adapters whether in use or not set the following:
- Turn off Internet Protocol Version 6 then select OK
- Re-open the network card settings select configure then select the power save tab
- Turn off all power save options click OK then OK
- Re-open the network card settings select configure then select the advanced tab
- Turn off/disable anything with offload within the name and also turn off receive side scaling (RSS) click OK then OK
From an admin command prompt run the following
- netsh int tcp set global chimney=disabled
- netsh interface tcp set global rss=disabled
- netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disable
Then the following command:
- netsh interface tcp show global
Make sure you see the following items as disabled
- receive-side scaling is disabled
- chimney offload state is disabled
- receive window auto-tuning level is disabled
Close the command prompt.
