Vista Wired Network Performance Problem Solved

So I recently cleaned up my home machine, repartitioned the drives, and reinstalled Vista. Exciting since it will mean the machine is in a wonderful clean state (I had previously upgraded over XP, which worked fine but always makes me a little bit suspicious). But, since that time, my network performance has been just terrible. How terrible? Well have a look-

You're reading that right- my Comcast cable modem was performing just a little better than dialup. It felt like 1995 all over again.

It to me some to figure out that it was specific to my wired connection, switching to a wireless connection would speed up performance dramatically. How dramatically? Have a look -

So after much troubleshooting, reading of KB articles, enabling and disabling of network connections, and general heartache, I remembered that at some point, I had installed updated driver software for my wired connection. So what the heck, I figured, roll that back to the old version and see what happens.

After rolling back, my network performance is great again. How great? You know the drill...

 

As the properties dialog indicates, the problem seems related to my Realtek NIC, so if you're running this configuration, beware of new drivers!

 

Some related and useful links:

http://reviews.cnet.com/7004-7254_7-0.html

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929707/

 

Technorati Tags: Network, Vista, Performance, Drivers

Comments

[Mike]

What tool did you use to measure your network performance, which tool are those screenshots from?

[David Gustafson]

YOU ARE MY HERO. I experienced the same slowdown for the last couple of weeks (as low as 32kbit) and I knew it was specific to my Vista box. I disabled everything I could think of (Firewall, Defender, E-Trust AV). I have exactly the same RealTek driver, but it is talking to a Cisco 678 DSL router through a DLink 10/100 switch. Rolling the driver back fixed the problem.

[Charles Teague]

_Very glad_ you found this- after tearing my hair out for hours, I stumbled on this and figured somewhere out there someone else was going through what I was. I guess that's what a blog is for :)!

[Charles Teague]

BTW, Mike, I just used the CNET bandwidth tester:

http://reviews.cnet.com/7004-7254_7-0.html