VPN on CABLE too slow (win98SE)

[TestDude]

When I connect to the office, my VPN connections indicates 10,000,000bps, but all actions are unbelievably slow. When I check about this at the office, the connection log indicates that I had connected at 9,600bps??!!!

My cable internet service is through Comcast@home, I have tried modifying registry settings (recieve window, etc.) and fooling around with the network properties, but the results are the same. I would very much appreciate your assistance.

 

[rholland]

Is up/down speed symmetrical? I read somewhere that most cable systems are asymmetrical speed-wise, like ADSL. Some even require a modem/telco connection for the uplink. If yours is an asymmetrical setup, one link (uplink from server probably) is the bottleneck. Even if client link is symmetrical to ISP (probably not), connection will only be at slowest common speed. Since client sees poor response from server, it's probably the server uplink to ISP that's slow. (-:

 

[TestDude]

I understand what you mean, yes, my cable internet is "Full Duplex", and both ways it is extremely fast. One of my co-workers uses the exact same ISP as I do, and uses a Windows 2K to log on to VPN from home, and the server connection logs 10,000,000bps as his connection. I see it very unlikey that Windows98 be THIS much slower than NT or 2K when it comes to VPN.
Thanks for your response.

 

[rholland]

Well, the next thing I'd check is TCP stack parameters like RcvWin, MTU, MSS and such. Try going to

http://www.speedguide.net

and using the TCP/IP Analyzer link. Have you downloaded any freeware utilites purporting to "increase your internet connection speed" or "optimize your connection?" Sometimes they modify the RcvWin buffer or set MTU permanently to 576 (optimal for dialup) instead of 1500 (optimal for LAN/DSL/Cable).

 

[TestDude]

Thanks again for your reply. When we first got the cable modem installed, without using any tweaks and stuff, I connected to the VPN server and had the exact same speed results as I have now. Then, I did all that tweaking, opened up the RcvWindow and and a bunch of other stuff. The internet is much faster, but the VPN speed is the same. The only thing I haven't tried is connecting with a different operating system other than Win98, which I plan to do some time soon.
Thanks again for your help.

 

[dieselBREATH]

Lets make it simple. Get W2k. And no, I don't work for Microsoft.

 

[TestDude]

Then Perhaps you own Microsoft stock?
j/k

 

[PsychoDad]

Testdude....I have noticed that my vpn client on win98 runs slower that my son's vpn client on win2k, but it is not that much slower. How much memory in each machine?

 

[TestDude]

Well, I have 128MB of RAM in my machine, which is probably much more than enough for this issue. I just need to discover where the bottleneck is. I wonder if there is any third party client that could be installed to optimize VPN performance in Win98 platforms. I believe Microsoft would have provided of patch of some sort by now if it were actually possible. Thank you very much for your support.

 

[SloPoke]

Are are the top reasons for slow performance over VPN? (Assuming both sides have synchronous broadband) In fact, i'd like to know who has FAST vpn?

 

[TestDude]

Yes, of course as you can see by the title of this thread my problem is SLOW VPN, but the weird thing is that I know other people running the same operating system I am (i.e. Win98SE) who are getting better throughput to the same server.

 

[paasch]

Do winipcfg. See what the numbers say. When you browse the web is it from your cable modem or through the office server (while logged into vpn) are your directories on vpn server big or small?

Do a test. Copy a 3 meg file from your pc to the server. Time it of course. Copy the file back and time it. Get the guys who are fast to do the same. Let me see these results and maybe I can help. I need winipcfg too.
paasch@bellatlantic.net

 

[SloPoke]

Can you indicate which protocols you are using?

 

[Guest_imported]

Does anyone know how to use the VPN client with Win98SE and bind it to a LAN connection (NIC) rather than the dial-up adapter...???

 

[Guest_imported]

I am also having a similar problem with a n excruticatingly slow VPN connection using win 98 se over a DSL. I have also noticed that when I look at the connection properties, I see a burst of activity, such as 1-2K of data exchanged followed by anywhere from 20-60 seconds of inactivity. At this point, I can't, of course, rule out slow connections between myself and the network I am connecting to.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[WilliamLai]

I am a fresher to use VPN feature on Window 2000 Server. I got same problem with slow VPN connection by using Window 2000 Professional (W2P). Someone told me that W2 Server can be tuned in order to speed up the connection. Who can suggest me how to / where to tune Server.

 

[rholland]

Try applying DUN 1.4 for Win98SE-oddly enough, it updates the VPN adapter and PPP module. Make sure you get the right version-there's a version for W95, W98FE and W98SE. Then setup a new connection. Check Advanced Tab on the adapter and set the MTU to Large (1500) if not already; it may default to small (576).

Also get the VTCP.386 update (Q236926) and TCP/IP registry tweaks from

http://www.speedguide.net.

I recommend NOT explicitly setting the MTU to 1500 for all the NetTransX entries-Win98 will discover it OK. Just comment/remove the last entries in the .reg file explicitly setting MTU to 1500. The tweaks set TCP RcvWin to high value and set some TCP/IP options to better utilize a DSL link.

If you use IE, I also recommend getting the "load Web pages faster" registry tweak. Your PC will establish many more PARALLEL connections to a web server, effectively causing a web page to be rendered quicker. This tweak does nothing for this VPN problem though.

 

[ciscokidjt]

Yep,
I've been looking very stupid at work for my inability to get a home user working via vpn running win98SE. To make things more fun, the corporate network is hybrid IP and IPX, and this user requires mapping to Novell for some of their apps. Can only speculate whether or not it's the Nortel VPN client(s) (one for IPsec and one for PPTP), or it's the crappy O/S that's giving me headaches.

 

[racer514]

So what was the final answer on this?
Oh, now I have to go home and try this because I have to do it this week for employeees anyway.
My though on the matter is that Win2k was designed with VPN technology in mind, Win98 was not and therefore there is a lot of non-standard elements in making Win98 a easy, usefull VON client. I will probably end up wiping it clean and starting over with Win2k.

 

[ciscokidjt]

Hey,
the dun 1.4 file and setting the MTU to large seems to have helped my problem with pptp sessions, at least enough to make the applications run at acceptable speeds. Still not even close to running over IPsec tunnel though. Thanks to rholland!