Soooo slow, why?

[yonnie]

Using 5.3 with standard rack, default configuration. UT box is k7n2MB w/Duron cpu, 1gb ram. It's not just slow email, everything is slow except tests.

I've tried the turning of tarpit off, removing the spam rack, and it's still slow. The speed test is always about as good as it's going to get, 500-700kb/s (about the same as a totally direct connection). But all downloads, including emails are sub-100k, sometimes less than 1k. I haven't found any topics in the forum that discuss this kind of issue, so it must be just me.

I'm using nat. I have an EVDO device connected to a Cradle-Point router 350. This connects to my External UT box, Internal is connected to the hub which connects all the computers to form the LAN.

All of the computers internet browsing is slow, downloads are irritatingly slow, mail is a PITA! Updates are miserable. Doesn't matter if one computer is on, or if all of them are on.

What is normal? I'm getting a 10X reduction in speed through my UT box, on average. Is this expected behaviour?

[sky-knight]

Duron? The cache hobbled bastard step child of AMD? To be honest I'm surprised it works at all. There are worlds of complaints from users attempting UT on celeron based platforms for the same reason. You need that CPU cache to perform the math of running a network quickly. I'm willing to bet if you got into your UT console and ran top you'd find your CPU positively pegged.

[dmorris]

running 'top' to check cpu, and 'free -m' to check memory usage wouldn't be a bad idea
look at "free -/+ buffers cache"

What exactly is slow? HTTP, SMTP, POP, FTP, the series of tubes?

[yonnie]

When downloading anything, rarely does speed go above 70. Especially updates from any repository, occasionally get spikes exceeding 100k, but dips have been observed at below .5k. Browsing sometimes takes forever, sometimes not so bad. Get mail from gmx, downright sucks...can take more than a minute, get mail from website can take even longer although the password handshake routine seems darn near instant. Had no idea this cpu was rated so bad, it's supposed to be 2.6ghz and the install test routine rated it as good.

Running top showed memory to be 2.5gb with 1.2gb not used. cpu usage seldom went above 5% with spikes showing 32%. Every thing else was 1% or zero, except item called id, it seemed to be at 98% and above. Can't find any description for this parameter.

[mdh]

Yonnie,

Do tests with speedtest.com or dslreports.com with a browser on the Untangle console and from a computer connected behind Untangle. I have done this in the past when people complained about speed differences, and usually found a 2-3% difference between the console and a computer behind Untangle. I expect there's something else going on. Have you done an ifconfig at the command line on the Untangle box to see what kind of stats you have on the NICs? Maybe you're getting a lot of collisions. What kind of NICs do you have installed?

[yonnie]

Using CNET broadband test....Internal network showed speeds from 179kb/s to 508kb/s. Untangle showed 384 to 579kb/s. Typical downloads are showing 40-60kB/s. This is on a new machine, (spent all day trying to download a good copy of 5.3). This machine is a 1.999ghz Celeron with 1gb of ram and a linksys and D-link ethernet ports. For some reason the Untangle can't find the built-in Ethernet port (e-machine). Overall, this machine seems slower than the previous one.

If the machine is showing 40-60kB/s, (download manager) and the 'B' is 8 bits? Then the downloads/uploads are going about as fast as they're going to get? Thanks to my lousy connection?

Please excuse the fire-drill and thanks for the help, much appreciated.