Upgrading from a desktop to a 2.5G network card, accelerating local area network connectivity.

Desktop hardware three-in-one, in the previous text we mentioned PCIe adapter for solid state drives, where did the old SSDs go? Of course there was no waste, were any of them broken, disassembled and installed on the newly purchased ‘MechMaker Mini-3765H’ (bought a year ago).

The new machine has powerful hardware specifications: 2.5G dual network interface, PCIe4.0, WiFi6.

Recently moved house and my room doesn’t have a dedicated router for networking, all the machines are connected via wireless network; the ASUS motherboard desktop wireless card performance wasn’t great, or perhaps it was the router’s wireless access, which resulted in slow upload speeds between local networks, leading to poor network speeds between the machines. I purchased a 2.5G NIC and installed it on the desktop.

Thus, all the slots on the motherboard are now full: graphics card, wireless card, 2.5G NIC, PCIe adapter for solid state drives.

Network Instructions

Both machines connect to the internet using their original wireless network cards, but are directly connected via Ethernet cables between the two, with both ends equipped with 2.5G network cards. The specifics of how to physically connect the cables aren’t detailed here – numerous tutorials are available online; just remember to disable your firewall. You can select either machine as the gateway.

graph TD;
    A[Machine 1<br>IP: 192.168.4.1<br>Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0<br>Default Gateway: - <br>Obtain DNS Automatically] -->|Ethernet Connection (2.5G)| B[Machine 2<br>IP: 192.168.4.2<br>Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0<br>Default Gateway: 192.168.4.1<br>Obtain DNS Automatically];
    A -->|Wireless Card| Internet;
    B -->|Wireless Card| Internet;

Two Subnet Speed Testing

Router LAN

C:\Users\core\Desktop\iperf-3.1.3-win32>iperf3.exe -c 192.168.3.237
Connecting to host 192.168.3.237, port 5201
[  4] local 192.168.3.122 port 1656 connected to 192.168.3.237 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth
[  4]   0.00-1.00   sec  9.17 MBytes  76.7 Mbits/sec
[  4]   1.00-2.00   sec  9.91 MBytes  83.2 Mbits/sec
[  4]   2.00-3.00   sec  8.74 MBytes  73.3 Mbits/sec
[  4]   3.00-4.00   sec  10.2 MBytes  85.2 Mbits/sec
[  4]   4.00-5.00   sec  9.23 MBytes  77.1 Mbits/sec
[  4]   5.00-6.00   sec  8.80 MBytes  73.9 Mbits/sec
[  4]   6.00-7.01   sec  8.00 MBytes  66.8 Mbits/sec
[  4]   7.01-8.00   sec  7.69 MBytes  64.9 Mbits/sec
[  4]   8.00-9.01   sec  9.72 MBytes  81.1 Mbits/sec
[  4]   9.01-10.01  sec  7.63 MBytes  63.6 Mbits/sec
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth
[  4]   0.00-10.01  sec  89.0 MBytes  74.6 Mbits/sec                  sender
[  4]   0.00-10.01  sec  89.0 MBytes  74.6 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.

Direct LAN Connection

C:\Users\core\Desktop\iperf-3.1.3-win32>iperf3.exe -c 192.168.4.1
Connecting to host 192.168.4.1, port 5201
[  4] local 192.168.4.2 port 1524 connected to 192.168.4.1 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth
[  4]   0.00-1.01   sec   178 MBytes  1.48 Gbits/sec
[  4]   1.01-2.00   sec   204 MBytes  1.72 Gbits/sec
[  4]   2.00-3.00   sec   214 MBytes  1.80 Gbits/sec
[  4]   3.00-4.00   sec   229 MBytes  1.92 Gbits/sec
[  4]   4.00-5.00   sec   202 MBytes  1.69 Gbits/sec
[  4]   5.00-6.00   sec   213 MBytes  1.79 Gbits/sec
[  4]   6.00-7.00   sec   230 MBytes  1.93 Gbits/sec
[  4]   7.00-8.00   sec   192 MBytes  1.61 Gbits/sec
[  4]   8.00-9.00   sec   220 MBytes  1.84 Gbits/sec
[  4]   9.00-10.00  sec   230 MBytes  1.93 Gbits/sec
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec  2.06 GBytes  1.77 Gbits/sec                  sender
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec  2.06 GBytes  1.77 Gbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.

References

A financial IT programmer's tinkering and daily life musings
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