Mac SE EtherTalk speed?

[macroexp]

It's insufferably slow!

I have an SE running 7.1 - 800k FDD, 4MB RAM, SCSI2SD with a 256mb microSD, and an (Excelan/Kinetics/Shiva) Etherport SE. I also have netatalk 2.2.4 set up on a Linux VM with EtherTalk/DDP enabled, and a Basilisk II instance running 7.5.3 on a Windows VM.

AppleTalk to or from the SE is really slow. Like, 3-4 KB/s slow. I thought "well, probably the 8 MHz cpu" but then I tried the built-in FTP server in BetterTelnet - and files move at 50-60 KB/s! 

I'd really rather use EtherTalk for a couple reasons, obviously, preservation of the resource fork, but it's also more fun and user friendly.

Any ideas on what might be going on, or... is this normal?

 

[Apache Thunder]

What interface is your Etherport using? An internal PDS slot based Ethernet card will probably give you the best possible speeds on that machine.

 

[Elfen]

Is this Twisted Pair Cat 5 cable or Thin Coax cable?

The first has the max of 5MB/sec.

The second has the max of 2MB/sec.

(Or so goes my memory)

But because it has a theoretical limit of 5 or 2 mb/sec does not mean that it will get it. There are issues with file transfers with from the interface to the mobo to the hard drive - these two connection points can make or break your server's speed.

So this is a 8MHz SE - stock? Any disk cache being used? Has the system been optimized? Is AppleTalk on? The 8MHz is a major stumbling block, but it is more about the software than the hardware.

 

[macroexp]

So, the EtherPort SE is a PDS card, and I'm using the AUI port with a 10base-T transceiver (MAU), which is hooked into a 10/100/1000 managed switch. 

The processor is stock - no accelerators present. Disk cache at 128KB.

I'm fairly certain the hardware is working fine, since I can sustain multi-megabyte transfers at ~60 KB/s using FTP. It's just AppleTalk (EtherTalk) that's terribly slow (10x slower).

Software is System 7.1, MacTCP 2.0.6, AppleShare Workstation 3.5, and NSI 1.5.1. 

 

[johnklos]

Don't forget capitalization - 5 Mb/sec is definitely not the same as 5 MB/sec.

10base2 isn't only 5 Mbps - it runs at the full 10 Mbps of standard Ethernet - but it's half duplex only. Twisted pair can be full duplex, depending on whether it's connected to a hub, a switch, or directly to the Ethernet of another computer.

It may be worthwhile to try 7.5.5 to see if the System software is not quite right.

 

[Elfen]

Open Transport on System 7.6.1 is a lot better and faster but it does not work on the older 24bit Dirty ROM machines.

But in thinking - look inside your extensions folder at around the networking extensions. Disable the following if you find them:

Novell extensions/Control Panels, IPX extensions/Control Panels, Token Ring extensions/Control Panels, and NuBus network Extensions. The last one because this is a PDS machine an not a NuBus machine as memory serves me.

Keep: AppleTalk extensions/Control Panels, PDS Network Extensions, MacTCP/IP extensions/Control Panels and a few others.

If Open transport is in the system, keep it unless it crashes on boot (which happens on some machines). Then you need to disable it.

Again, this is by my memory, which is not perfect. But as I remember, doing this on my powerbooks and Mac IIci, it did speed things up.