Comments on: Newer drivers ARE better. Go figure.

By: Wilko

Wilko — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 06:00:07 +0000

Does anyone know if this has been resolved or if there is a fix to get this working? I’ve been having the same problem and I’m sure if we could hard code the speed/duplex it would resolve some of the transfer rate issues everyone is getting on the HP ex47x boxes.

By: Dav

Dav — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 05:01:56 +0000

Hi, I have exactly the same LAN chip. I cannot choose 1000 full/half either. According the SiS’s site it should support 1000mbps. The manufacturers of motherboards with SiS191 gigalan also state the same. Maybe we are cheated by them? It’s actually a 10/100 fast ethernet chip but not a gigabit controller? I search in google for a while and seems no one with this SiS191 is able to get 1000mb/s.

By: Thaiger

Thaiger — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:21:23 +0000

Hi Ian,
I do have the same problem, i also cannot se where to chose 1000/full, as you write !
Please tell me when you find a solution, thanks in advance :-)
Kind regards Thaiger

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:13:15 +0000

Can anybody get the port to go into Gig status (1000/full)? It will not let me hard code it and auto neg to a gig port only comes up as 100/full. I’m guessing because I cannot hard code it, it is not supported? Do others see the same thing when they go to the adapter’s “Advanced” tab then the “Speed & Duplex” settings (no 1000/full)? Thanks!

By: asd

asd — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 20:42:11 +0000

Vista SP1 has some improvements for large file copies to older OS’s (WHS is based on W2003, so it qualifies). If you’re suffering from slow file copy from a Vista client to WHS, you might want to consider updating to Vista SP1 instead of or in addition to rev’ing the drivers.

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:28:52 +0000

I installed the newer SiS 191 drivers on my mediasmart server last night. I have to say I’m very impressed. With the original in-box drivers, file transfers seem to start out ok (20-25MB/s), but over the course of a large transfer (multi-GB video files), it would slow down dramatically (to perhaps 8MB/s). With the new drivers, the file transfer maintained a consistent 30MB/s speed over my Gigabit network, which I would bet is probably maxing the sustained write speed of the drives in the server.

This was just a single file copy, and I’ll do some more testing tonight, but this looks like a very promising improvement for an annoying problem.

By: johnb

johnb — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 20:01:25 +0000

I was hoping this would eliminate the streaming video issues I have (every 60 secs approx it stutters, getting worse the longer the video).

By: aaronwt

aaronwt — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 02:09:07 +0000

I recently installed the new drivers. I still get around 230mbs to 250mbs trabsfer rates between my three Vista machines. But I do see where the burst speeds don’t jump extremely high anymore. Whether that is good or bad I don’t know. I’d really like to get 300mbs to 350mbs transfer rates like I get when I transfer from VISTA machine to VISTA machine.

By: All4Fun

All4Fun — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:51:04 +0000

I hope that I’m not experiencing the placebo effect but I updated the driver and i felt it made my network throughput a lot more consistent instead of bouncing all over the place as it was doing before.

By: Rafael

Rafael — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:07:11 +0000

You can access the entire underlying operating system on your Windows Home Server by using Remote Desktop.

1. Using Windows Vista, click the Start orb, then type: remote desktop connection
2. In the Computer input box, type the hostname of your server, click Connect
3. When presented with a login screen, login with user “Administrator” and whatever administrative password you set (same one used for the connector software)

By: harry krause

harry krause — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:16:47 +0000

I’m still trying to figure out how you used device manager to reach the SIS191…I don’t see how one does this with VISTA.

By: Rafael

Rafael — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:54:45 +0000

Bear,

I’m sorry if I gave my fellow blogosphere pals the impression this article was about increasing speed, this isn’t the case. I am happier about the increase in stability and the disappearing of my “server-not-responding” issues than the increases in speed.

Besides, I am not properly equipped to test speed. Being on a 100mbit line, I can only go so fast. I would like to repeat the test with gigabit-speed hardware in place…

I’ll add a note to the article, thanks for the feedback!

By: Bear

Bear — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:39:53 +0000

I must say, I was disappointed in the results you found. I linked to this entry from an try in the Windows Home Server blog saying “Do you have a HP MediaSmart Server and find that the network speed and throughput should not be as it should?”. I thought it would be great to actually get better file transfer performance and so here I came.

Your results show a 2% improvement. I guess one could say “well, it’s something”, but really, it’s probably not even noticeable. Yes, that multi-gigabyte transfer will take a few seconds less. Imagine, from 3 minutes down to a screaming 2 minutes 56 seconds! Woot!

That said, I suppose the fix has other benefits, including a more ’stable’ dataflow. But, from a “I might get more speed? How!” reaction, this was a big letdown. :)

Thanks anyway,
bear

By: harry krause

harry krause — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:22:31 +0000

Would one of you fellows please provide simple, step by step instructions for updating the adapter on my Windows Home Server?

I have downloaded the file, but I am clueless about finding the server’s Device Manager, or, as the original poster suggested, “remoting it” onto the server.

Thanks.

By: Rafael

Rafael — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:31:45 +0000

John,

Thanks for pointing that out. The driver in the package is actually dated 03/03/08. I’ll make a note of that in the post.

By: JohnBick

JohnBick — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:00:51 +0000

When I went looking I found this:

SiS191 Gigabit LAN & SiS190 LAN Driver
File Name sgl205.zip
Version v2.05
Release Date 2008-03-11

Even newer than yours???

By: HP MediaSmart Server - Updating the SiS191 Network Adapter Driver « MS Windows Home Server

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:59:54 +0000

[...] Then updating the SiS191 network adapter in Device Manager to the latest driver version should cure your problem. For the details including before and after performance graphs, see Rafeels not affiliated within Windows blog. [...]