Forums | MacLife
You are not logged in.
#1 2009-09-23 11:50 am
- CG5Addict
- Member
- From: middle of nowhere
- Registered: 2005-08-29
- Posts: 578
Online Speeds
Just curious, I just upgraded in July from cable 1.5mb dn/768k up to Fios 30mb up/30mb dn. My MacPro and MacBook Pro show working at around that speed give or take. But my G5 when testing it at SpeedTest.net show the G5 working at almost half that speed. Is there something different on the Ethernet card on a G5 compared to a MacPro or MacBook pro, or is it the software? 
G5 is running 10.5
MacPro and MacBook are running Snow leopard.
G5 and MacPro are hardwired
Macbook Pro is wireless.
Gears Of War Addict!
Offline
#2 2009-09-23 12:01 pm
- dv
- Negusa Negest
- Moderator
- From: Minneapolis, MN
- Registered: 1999-08-30
- Posts: 18092
Re: Online Speeds
Ethernet should be the same speed, give or take a couple percentage points. (gigabit ethernet on all three machines. Different controller may cause slight variations in speed, but not 50%.)
Is the G5 still using it's onboard ethernet, or is it connected with a USB NIC or something?
Could also just be a CPU thing - the speedtest.net application is a flash application, a slower single-CPU G5 might start to choke on it a little bit. Try downloading a large file from a dedicated server (like a 10.4.11 combined OS X updater) and see if the speed varies much. Or otherwise double-sheck with some other speed test sites.
"Now commences the process of cutting off the head, which generally takes from an hour to an hour and a half by an expert workman with a sharp blade." -Reuben Delano, Wanderings and Adventures
Offline
#3 2009-09-23 6:51 pm
Re: Online Speeds
A holdover bit of know-how from my PC days is that there is a hardware limit to how fast a computer can handle network throughput dependant upon its memory and CPU. Maybe the G5's maximum in this regard rests around the 15mb mark. A test to demonstrate this would be to transfer a large file from one device on the network to the G5, and then back, using a network monitor to keep track of transmission speeds.
There's what you love to do, and then there's what you get paid to do. Those two things are often different.
Offline
#4 2009-09-24 1:32 pm
- dv
- Negusa Negest
- Moderator
- From: Minneapolis, MN
- Registered: 1999-08-30
- Posts: 18092
Re: Online Speeds
Jokotai wrote:
A holdover bit of know-how from my PC days is that there is a hardware limit to how fast a computer can handle network throughput dependant upon its memory and CPU. Maybe the G5's maximum in this regard rests around the 15mb mark. A test to demonstrate this would be to transfer a large file from one device on the network to the G5, and then back, using a network monitor to keep track of transmission speeds.
FWIW, my G5 tower can easily saturate a 100 Mbps ethernet connection for a simple file transfer. (yay NAS!)
"Now commences the process of cutting off the head, which generally takes from an hour to an hour and a half by an expert workman with a sharp blade." -Reuben Delano, Wanderings and Adventures
Offline
#5 2009-09-24 2:20 pm
- pottymouth
- Uncreative
- Moderator
- From: JP, MA
- Registered: 2002-02-06
- Posts: 17410
- Website
Re: Online Speeds
Check the network section of System Profiler. At the bottom it should mention 100baseTX. If it was connecting as 10baseT for some reason you might be seeing exactly what you're seeing.
Offline
#6 2009-09-25 9:02 am
- CG5Addict
- Member
- From: middle of nowhere
- Registered: 2005-08-29
- Posts: 578
Re: Online Speeds
pottymouth wrote:
Check the network section of System Profiler. At the bottom it should mention 100baseTX. If it was connecting as 10baseT for some reason you might be seeing exactly what you're seeing.
O.K. when I went to look the computer froze, I ran disk Warrior and now my G5 is working fine like the rest. Could of been a coincidence that the computer froze when I was checking it. Don't understand why it froze when I was just checking the system profile, but I just guess it's just one of those things I will never know the answer to.
Gears Of War Addict!
Offline
