7.2M0 and Ethernet Performance

[eyan]

EDIT #1: Nevermind it's still slow on network transfers...getting 2-5 KB/sec

Edit #2: It looks like I found the right combination of Chipset and USB3.0 drivers that resolves browsing and network share slowness:

Intel 7 Series/C216 Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 9.3.0.1011
(I was using a newer version of this and network shares were slow)
Intel USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller - 1.0.8.251



I finally figured out why I was getting slow ethernet performance. When I had installed the Intel 7 Series chipset drivers, it somehow missed the USB portion of the drivers so I was using the generic "Standard Enhanced PCI to USB" drivers instead of the "7 Series/C216 USB" drivers.

Make sure you guys update with the latest 7 series chipset drivers from Intel. This fixes the issue.

[XYZZY]

I'm now unable to get the Ethernet adapter to work with anything but the 7.2 driver, 7.2 seems to install some firmware update to the dock. Now reverting to anything previously refuses to allow the Ethernet adapter to be enumerated correctly. It comes up as an invalid device with anything but the 7.2.

Tried: 7.2 M0, 7.1 M1 & 7.0 M3, now only 7.2 M0 enumerates the USB (with awful performance).

The Ethernet down speed is now capped at about 50KB/sec.

I've also made sure (very important for video performance) in device manager, ensured that the USB 3 dock is enumerated correctly.

Within Device Manager, select "VIEW DEVICES BY CONNECTION" and expand it until you find the Intel Extensible USB 3.0 driver. (If your laptop/device uses this chipset)

Make sure that the Video and Ethernet appear under a USB 3.0 hub. Otherwise you get blurry screens, and poor Ethernet performance when your screens are busy refreshing. I had to refresh my USB 3.0 drivers previously to fix this.

My temporary fix, plug in a USB 2.0 Ethernet adapter into the dock until this is sorted out, I mostly use my X1 Carbon for Internet work, so 100Mbps is faster than my internet connection anyways. Internal file backups and copies, still painful.

[Paulie]

Ok I couldn't stand it any more so I installed the Intel USB drivers following the instructions on Plugable. Note the driver version has been updated several times since they published their notes.

Anyway, so far so good ethernet performance seems normal again, and BONUS: no more mouse lag.

Backup to NAS seems to be working normally.

Now that I've done this, I'm not sure what I will do when new drivers are released by DisplayLink...
but for now, I'm happy.

Using Lenovo X1 Carbon and USB 3.0 Dock.

EDIT: Sorry, I guess I was wrong. Seemed like it was working better for a while as the backup seemed to be running, but it crapped out again. Large files across Ethernet just don't work. Also noticed occasional mouse lag/freeze but this still seems better than before.

[RonV42]

Any idea of when this will be fixed? I had to load the previous driver on my Surface PRO to get the Ethernet adapter to work again. But going back to the previous driver brings the slow launch issue of the metro apps and using software rendering in the browser vs. GPU rendering to speed up metro apps.

[Wim]

We're working on getting a release out mid May that should fix this for the users seeing the problem. Some teething trouble with the new Ethernet driver model that was introduced in 7.2.

Wim