Ubuntu 11.04 wired internet slow (disabled ipv6, set MTU).

[drewg]

Hello.
My rig:
Gigabyte Z68X GA-UD4-B3 (BIOS latest)
^ Using onboard LAN,
Corsair Vengeance CMZ8GX3M2A1600C8 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3
Intel Core i5 2500K
Gainward 570GTX Stock
Ubuntu 11.04 64bit installed
Running off a Samsung Spinpoint 160GB SATA II HDD (plugged into SATA 2 port)

Router: Billion BiPac 7401VGPR3

I had initial troubles installing Ubuntu, when I'd set a partition to 150GB, it would put down 149,999MB. Which is strange.
Anyway, installation despite the initial troubles was fine. I did this off of the Ubuntu CD. There were no disk errors etc.

My internet is extremely slow when browsing and downloading.
I read about IPv6 maybe slowing it, so I did what was described here.
And added the following lines to /etc/sysctl.conf

#disable ipv6
net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6 = 1

I also read numerous posts, one that stood out was (I can't find the link) where a guy said Ubuntu internet was about 25% slower than Windows.
I read it, and looked into my router config, I see the MTU is set to 1492, so I set my wired connection MTU to 1492 via "edit connections" in Ubuntu.

I've also played around and set MTU to below 1492, etc. But it's no help. I get about a maximum speed from my ISP's test files os about 150KB/s where sometimes I can get about 1.5MB/s - nearly 2MB/s.

So I'm really at a loss, and have no clue as to what to do.
Here's the results of an "ifconfig"

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 1c:6f:65:c6:35:3e  
          inet addr:192.168.1.1  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1492  Metric:1
          RX packets:20718 errors:0 dropped:20718 overruns:0 frame:20718
          TX packets:15430 errors:0 dropped:119 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:26212244 (26.2 MB)  TX bytes:1968305 (1.9 MB)
          Interrupt:41 Base address:0xe000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:165 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:165 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:14884 (14.8 KB)  TX bytes:14884 (14.8 KB)

I really am at a loss. I recently upgraded my PC, and am looking to getting back into Linux.
All help is appreciated, and thank you in advance.

[drewg]

I'm guessing there's no solution. It's probably the Z68 chipset.

I've tried upgrading the kernel - but no success, the thing just says it was unsuccessful.

[drewg]

Nothing?

[varunendra]

I had initial troubles installing Ubuntu, when I'd set a partition to 150GB, it would put down 149,999MB. Which is strange.

No, this is normal. The partition size is rounded to match cylinder boundaries which most often reduces the actual size than what you defined numerically.

My internet is extremely slow when browsing and downloading.
I read about IPv6 maybe slowing it, so I did what was described here.
And added the following lines to /etc/sysctl.conf

#disable ipv6
net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6 = 1

....
.. looked into my router config, I see the MTU is set to 1492, so I set my wired connection MTU to 1492 via "edit connections" in Ubuntu.

I've also played around and set MTU to below 1492, etc. But it's no help. I get about a maximum speed from my ISP's test files os about 150KB/s where sometimes I can get about 1.5MB/s - nearly 2MB/s.
....
Here's the results of an "ifconfig"

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 1c:6f:65:c6:35:3e  
          inet addr:192.168.1.1  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1492  Metric:1
          RX packets:20718 errors:0 dropped:20718 overruns:0 frame:20718
          TX packets:15430 errors:0 dropped:119 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:26212244 (26.2 MB)  TX bytes:1968305 (1.9 MB)
          Interrupt:41 Base address:0xe000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:165 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:165 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:14884 (14.8 KB)  TX bytes:14884 (14.8 KB)

Apparently you've successfully disabled IPv6 which is a correct step. But still there are packet drops which is not good! Adjusting MTU settings is also a reasonable option, but I think you should've checked physical connectivity first (try replacing cable). An easy way to verify physical connectivity would be to use a different OS on the same machine, like windows or a significantly different linux (slax, puppy, fedora, DSL etc.) to see if the speed improves. But of course it should have the correct driver for your NIC.

I'm guessing there's no solution. It's probably the Z68 chipset.

The Z68 is just a southbridge chip, it has nothing to do with network connection. But the framing error in your ifconfig output does suggest that there may be a driver issue with your network adapter chip. So please post output of following to see which network adapter you have and which driver it is using:

sudo lshw -C network

I'm no expert on this but hope we can figure it out.

[drewg]

Here's the results:

drewg@Drew-PC-Ubuntu:~$ sudo lshw -C network
[sudo] password for drewg:
  *-network              
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:07:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 06
       serial: 1c:6f:65:c6:35:3e
       size: 100Mbit/s
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full ip=192.168.1.1 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=100Mbit/s
       resources: irq:41 ioport:ee00(size=256) memory:fbcff000-fbcfffff memory:fbcf8000-fbcfbfff
drewg@Drew-PC-Ubuntu:~$

[varunendra]

Here's the results:

....
  *-network              
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller
....
....
....
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full ip=192.168.1.1 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=100Mbit/s
....

Looks like this very case (broken driver): http://www.foxhop.net/realtek-droppi...ntu-and-fedora
Follow it, then post the above result and result of ifconfig again.

[davidaf]

Same problem here and solved changing Realtek drivers following instructions provided in sugested page (http://www.foxhop.net/realtek-droppi...ntu-and-fedora).

My hardware:

Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z68X-UD3H-B3

root@rivendel:~# lshw -C network
  *-network               
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller

Sympthoms where the same, slow web surfing that I think was caused by muy crapy internet connection but I was having problems coping files to other lan devices.

Doing ping -f to my network router showed an enormous amount of packet loss.
Searched, found this post, followed instructions and ... PROBLEM SOLVED.

THANKS

¿Could be a good idea to file a bug in launchpad?

[varunendra]

Glad it helped someone (the suggested page didn't contain any comments, so I was doubtful)

¿Could be a good idea to file a bug in launchpad?

.. Definitely! They should release it with a fixed driver or it being already blacklisted!

[drewg]

Hi,
The fix sort of worked.
However the bit:

echo "blacklist r8169" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Just returns with "access denied".

So I added the blacklist manually, however that didn't seem to help.

Is there any way for me to select which driver to use? The "additional drivers" software has really changed, and I can't seem to enable Ubuntu to use the drivers listed there "realtek, and NVIDIA". So I have no way of actually getting Ubuntu to use a proprietary driver.

Is there some way of making Ubuntu use these drivers?
The manual blacklist didn't work as I said.
So Ubuntu is using the older drivers. And by me installing the newer ones has some how made the (albeit slow) Internet not work at all.

I appreciate the help so far

[varunendra]

Driver modules are loaded during kernel loading. So if you have correctly added the module name to blacklist.conf file, then it will be dropped when the system boots. Just reboot and see if the correct driver has been loaded:

lshw -C network

If the above command still shows the r8169 module in use, verify that the line blacklist r8169 is correctly added:

cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf | grep 8169

What do you mean 'Additional Driver' software has changed? Is it not in place where it should be or does it not show additional drivers anymore?