[Sanjan]

i'm editing a rather large video file (3gb) and im sending it from my powerbook to a windows xp pc with a 100 mbs card. Im using my gigabit card and going to a router. the router is then going to the pc...... its like 300kb/s shouldn't i bet getting like 3mbs or so???? the router is a netgear wgt624 and i also have a cross wire cable available.... how can i make this speed up???

[ginoledesma]

Try bypassing the router and do a direct connect between the Mac and PC. That should result in a faster connection.

Note that the cable quality affects the performance as well. You should look to getting a good-grade Cat 5e, or if you can, Cat 6 cable.

[ghporter]

Keep in mind that you may be trying to compare "bits per second" with "bytes per second." Most file transfer displays still show in bytes, but 100BaseT maxes out at 100 megabits per second. 300kBytes per second equates to 2,457,600 bits per second or 2.34375megabits per second.

It's possible that your gigabit card is automatically falling back too far when it senses the router-check its settings and make sure that it steps down to 100MB/s. This is an unfortunately common problem with moving up to a gigabit card on an existing network; sometimes you have to tweak the card's settings to make sure it doesn't assume your router is slower than it is. In fact sometimes some gigabit cards can't properly detect the capacity of certain routers' ports. Try a direct connection for those big files. You don't need a crossover cable, since the gigabit card in your PowerBook autosenses the configuration and handles it appropriately. I suggest using a brand new cable, too.