Netwokr connect speed

[Jamie Dobbs]

Peter Garrett wrote:
> On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 21:04:59 +1200
> Jamie Dobbs <jamie.dobbs at ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
>   
>> My Google-fu must be weak on this but for the life of me I cannot find a 
>> way to show the current speed at which an Ethernet device is connected. 
>> I am having throughput issues with the Gigabit network port on my 
>> motherboard (Albatron K8NF4U) and would like to confirm the connect speed.
>>     
>
> Try
>
> sudo ethtool eth0
>
> ( or the interface for your card, of course )
>
> There is also mii-tool - for instance with -v for verbose:
>
> sudo mii-tool -v eth0
>
> ethtool is probably all you need for your case -the output shows speed
> clearly.
>
>
> Peter
>
>   
Thanks, I get the following output:

Settings for eth0:
        Supported ports: [ MII ]
        Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                                1000baseT/Full
        Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
        Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                                1000baseT/Full
        Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
        Speed: 1000Mb/s
        Duplex: Full
        Port: MII
        PHYAD: 7
        Transceiver: external
        Auto-negotiation: on
        Supports Wake-on: g
        Wake-on: d
        Link detected: yes


Which shows a gigabit connection speed but still the transfer rates are 
less than half (at times less than 15%!) of what I get on the same 
machine in Windows. (also why does it show a port of MII and an external 
transceiver - its a TP card after all!)
Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that the card uses the 
forcedeth driver which appears to have some problems?
Maybe I'd be better off shelling out a few bucks and getting a different 
NIC to see if it improves speed?
What is a 'recommended' gigabit chipset for Ubuntu/Linux? I have a 
Realtek based gigabit card in my other machine that seems to perform 
well enough, but are there better ones?