transfers slow in one direction

[Greg Tillman]

Well, folks might (or might not) be interested to know that I got fed up
with the whole thing, moved the two network cards to a different computer,
and everything works fine now.

Except . . .  testing the thruput with netperf (TCP STREAM TEST on linux
2.0.36) seems to lead to bifurcated results.  At 10-second tests, about
half the tests yield 80 Mb/sec, and about half yield 12 Mb/sec.  This
diminishes, but does not go away, as the test time increases.  At 5 minute
tests, a little more than half the tests range from 30 to 50 Mb/sec, and
the rest are still at 12 to 15.  This is not my area of expertise - any
thoughts appreciated.  

- greg tillamn

>I have 3 linux boxes, one set up as a router (of sorts) with 2 eepro100
>cards, and boxes A and B each with one eepro100 card, connected to the
>router with crossover cables.
>
>I've been using ftp to get some rough transfer rates, and the problem is
>that the transfer rate TO the router is always quite slow (~ 4.5 Mb/sec),
>almost as if i were dealing with 10Mb cards.  It doesn't matter if I start
>the ftp on the router and do a get, or start it on box A or box B and do a
>put, I always get a slow rate.  If I do the transfer in the other
>direction, again whether I'm getting or putting, I get 40 to 60 Mb/sec,
>which is fine.