Question : Problem: Gigabit Ethernet - Dropping Packets - How to Minimize?

Hello -

I'm doing some pretty high bandwidth packet capturing via TCP/IP using a gigabit ethernet controller, attempting to collect at approximately 400 mbps.  The duration of this collection is about 3 minutes.

While doing this, I am getting a few dropped packets, at a rate of about 0.003% or so.  It's not bad by any means percentage-wise, but for this project we'd like to see no drops.

Are there any settings in Windows that might be causing these occasional drops?  Things like flow control, QoS packet scheduler, etc?  I tried several different ethernet cables (supposedly tested to 10 Gb/s rates at the factory) as well, and am keeping the cable run between our test article and the PC at <10 ft.  Swapping different cables in and out also does not increase or decrease the dropped packet rate, telling me it's something else ...

Anyways, the PC involved is a very new Dell workstation, running Windows XP x64.  It has a Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx integrated NIC.  (Exact version, I'm not sure)

Thanks in advance for any help!

Brett

Answer : Problem: Gigabit Ethernet - Dropping Packets - How to Minimize?

What is the test device? Is it another PC or a switch? If it's a PC to PC connection then you should be using a cross over cable instead of a straight through cable. If the connection goes to a switch then you should use a straight through cable.