Gigabit internet, download is slower than upload on all ethernet connected Macs in the house (windows PCs are fine)

Question

AlexPonsin Author

Level 1

14 points

Gigabit internet, download is slower than upload on all ethernet connected Macs in the house (windows PCs are fine)

I recently got installed Gigabit Fiber optic internet (woohoo).

The tech came and we tested the speed. He was getting ~900 Mbps Down and UP on his windows laptop.

I have 3 Macs at home:

- Mac Pro 2010 - cabled directly to the modem with Cat 5e over 1Gbps ethernet

- Mac Mini 2012 - cabled directly to the modem with Cat 5e over 1Gbps ethernet

- Macbook Pro Touch Bar 2016 - using usb-c to ethernet adapter cabled directly to the modem with Cat 5e over 1Gbps ethernet

My wife has a Windows 10 PC (Dell XPS 13), and we are using the same usb-c dongle to connect the Dell to the modem than with the macbook. Strictly the same connection mechanism all around.

On the windows laptop I consistently get ~900 Mbps Down and ~900 Mbps Up.

On *any* of the Macs I get the full ~900 Mbps uploads, but never more than ~350 Mbps in download speed.

I don't get it. Tried playing with the MTU size, etc. Nothing changes, the Mac download is always about a third of what it should be.

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2016, 4 TBT3), macOS High Sierra (10.13.5)

Posted on Jun 8, 2018 8:51 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 11, 2018 5:17 PM in response to AlexPonsin

got a third-party anti-virus running?

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Answer 2

Jun 14, 2018 11:23 AM in response to AlexPonsin

I expect a fiber-attached Router might be sending you jumbo frames, maybe 8K frames, which might get rejected if buffering were not available in the Mac. That would take a little time to re-transmit in smaller frames.

You said you experimented with Jumbo frames. What is that set to now?

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Answer 3

Jun 18, 2018 8:45 AM in response to AlexPonsin

I don't see any known Bad Actors in your Report.

Are you shutting off Dropbox and adobe web services while you do these speed tests?

Safe Mode may be handy as it does not load any third-party kernel extensions (or graphics accelerators, so screen update will be wonky and slow, but eventually accurate).

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Answer 4

Jun 11, 2018 5:23 PM in response to AlexPonsin

are you sync-ing a large photo library or Dropbox or similar account at the same time?

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Answer 5

Jun 12, 2018 8:20 AM in response to AlexPonsin

I really do not understand why this should be slow to download, but appropriately fast to upload.

If this were mine, I would use Activity Monitor and/or Etrecheck to see if there were some unexpected resource hog(s) running that were killing performance.

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Answer 6

Jun 16, 2018 6:41 AM in response to AlexPonsin

how about running and posting an etrecheck report on one (or several) of those Macs?

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Answer 7

Jun 13, 2018 7:28 PM in response to AlexPonsin

Were you able find and to get Network Utility working to check for any transmission errors?

Do your cables conform to the wiring shown in these diagrams (either the "A" or the "B" standard at either end is acceptable on the Mac)

http://www.incentre.net/tech-support/other-support/ethernet-cable-color-coding-d iagram/

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Answer 8

Jun 14, 2018 10:00 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Are you seeing any errors in Network Utility, like these:

.

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Answer 9

Jun 11, 2018 4:34 PM in response to AlexPonsin

To run at Gigabit speeds, all eight conductors must be present in the cables, and not set aside for stuff like "power-over-Ethernet". A cable with only four conductors will make a great connection and run at 100 Mbits/sec speeds just fine. A cable with a broken wire will accumulate errors.

Network Utility can tell you whether you have connected at Gigabit speeds, and whether your connection is experiencing errors. More than an initial handful of errors is a problem.

Typical connection method is Full Duplex, flow Control. Some devices, like Switches, can handle Jumbo frames up to the biggest. Many Routers (including Apple Routers) work at Gigabit speeds, but NOT Jumbo frames.

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Answer 10

glen230

Level 1

10 points

Jun 12, 2018 7:21 AM in response to AlexPonsin

OK, then the only other thing that changed was the driver that I installed for the hub. That installation resulted in a new .kext file, and some modification to the preboot sector of my drive. The other change I noted was in the "network" preferences, the rhetoric in the "duplex" drop down menu.

Sorry I missed the detail on your other Macs.

Glen

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Answer 11

AlexPonsin Author

Level 1

14 points

Jun 17, 2018 2:26 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Sure, here we go:

EtreCheck version: 4.3.2 (4D034)

Report generated: 2018-06-17 15:19:10

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime: 3:36

Performance: Good

Problem: Other problem

Description:

Not reaching 1 Gbps speed with Internet Speed test for download (but upload is working fine)

Major Issues: None

Minor Issues:

These issues do not need immediate attention but they may indicate future problems.

Apps crashing - There have been numerous app crashes.

Unsigned files - There is unsigned software installed. They appear to be legitimate but should be reviewed.

32-bit Apps - This machine has 32-bits apps that may have problems in the future.

Hardware Information:

Mac Pro (2010 - 2012)

Mac Pro Model: MacPro5,1

2 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (Xeon(R)) CPU: 8-core

64 GB RAM - At maximum

DIMM 1 - 16 GB DDR3 ECC 1066 ok

DIMM 2 - 16 GB DDR3 ECC 1066 ok

DIMM 3 - 16 GB DDR3 ECC 1066 ok

DIMM 4 - Empty

DIMM 5 - 16 GB DDR3 ECC 1066 ok

DIMM 6 - Empty

DIMM 7 - Empty

DIMM 8 - Empty

Video Information:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 - VRAM: 2048 MB

LED Cinema Display 2560 x 1440

Drives:

disk0 - Samsung SSD 860 PRO 512GB 512.11 GB (Solid State - TRIM: Yes)

External Generic 6 Gigabit Serial ATA

disk0s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB

disk0s2 511.90 GB

disk1s1 - HDD (APFS) 511.90 GB (162.78 GB used)

disk1s2 - Preboot (APFS) [APFS Preboot] 511.90 GB (45 MB used)

disk1s3 - Recovery (APFS) [Recovery] 511.90 GB (1.03 GB used)

disk1s4 - VM (APFS) [APFS VM] 511.90 GB (20 KB used)

disk2 - INTEL SSDSA2M160G2GC 160.04 GB (Solid State - TRIM: Yes)

External Generic 3 Gigabit Serial ATA

disk2s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB

disk2s2 159.83 GB

disk3s1 - S*****h (APFS) 159.83 GB (1 MB used)

disk4 - RAID Card 4.00 TB

Internal SAS

disk4s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB

disk4s2 4.00 TB

disk5s1 - R***a (APFS) 4.00 TB (224.34 GB used)

Mounted Volumes:

disk1s1 - HDD 511.90 GB (347.89 GB free)

APFS

Mount point: /

Encrypted

disk3s1 - S*****h 159.83 GB (159.70 GB free)

APFS

Mount point: /Volumes/S*****h

disk5s1 - R***a 4.00 TB (3.78 TB free)

APFS

Mount point: /Volumes/R***a

Network:

Interface usbmodem231: Loupedeck

Interface en0: Ethernet 1

One IPv4 address

Interface en1: Ethernet 2

Interface fw0: FireWire

Interface en2: Wi-Fi

802.11 a/b/g/n

Interface en3: Bluetooth PAN

iCloud Quota: 65.55 GB available

System Software:

macOS High Sierra 10.13.5 (17F77)

Time since boot: About 3 hours

System Load: 2.09 (1 min ago) 1.67 (5 min ago) 1.56 (15 min ago)

Configuration Files:

/etc/hosts - Count: 1

Security:

System	Status
Gatekeeper	Mac App Store and identified developers
System Integrity Protection	Enabled

Unsigned Files:

Launchd: ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.valvesoftware.steamclean.plist

Executable: /Users/***/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/steamclean

Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK

32-bit Applications:

17 32-bit apps

Kernel Extensions:

/Library/Extensions

[Loaded] AmbrosiaAudioSupport.kext (Ambrosia Software, Inc., 4.1.4 - SDK 10.11)

[Not Loaded] NVDAStartupWeb.kext (NVIDIA Corporation, 10.31.33 - OS X 10.7)

[Not Loaded] GeForceTeslaWeb.kext (NVIDIA Corporation, 10.31.33)

[Not Loaded] GeForceWeb.kext (NVIDIA Corporation, 10.31.33)

[Not Loaded] NVDAGF100HalWeb.kext (NVIDIA Corporation, 10.31.33)

[Not Loaded] NVDAGK100HalWeb.kext (NVIDIA Corporation, 10.31.33)

[Not Loaded] NVDAGM100HalWeb.kext (NVIDIA Corporation, 10.31.33)

[Not Loaded] NVDAGP100HalWeb.kext (NVIDIA Corporation, 10.31.33)

[Not Loaded] NVDANV50HalTeslaWeb.kext (NVIDIA Corporation, 10.31.33)

[Not Loaded] NVDAResmanTeslaWeb.kext (NVIDIA Corporation, 10.31.33)

[Not Loaded] NVDAResmanWeb.kext (NVIDIA Corporation, 10.31.33)

[Loaded] SteamInput.kext (Valve Corporation, 4357.73.42 - SDK 10.13)

[Not Loaded] SteamInput-DS4v1.kext (Valve Corporation, 4357.73.42 - SDK 10.9)

/System/Library/Extensions

[Not Loaded] AHCI_3rdParty_SATA.kext (1.0.0)

System Launch Agents:

[Not Loaded]	7 Apple tasks
[Loaded]	161 Apple tasks
[Running]	124 Apple tasks
[Other]	One Apple task

System Launch Daemons:

[Not Loaded]	34 Apple tasks
[Loaded]	180 Apple tasks
[Running]	121 Apple tasks

Launch Agents:

[Loaded]	com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2018-05-29)
[Loaded]	com.nvidia.nvagent.plist (NVIDIA Corporation - installed 2018-06-08)
[Running]	com.bjango.istatmenus.agent.plist (Bjango Pty Ltd - installed 2018-06-12)
[Running]	com.bjango.istatmenus.status.plist (Bjango Pty Ltd - installed 2018-06-12)
[Loaded]	com.adobe.GC.Invoker-1.0.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2018-05-30)

Launch Daemons:

[Loaded]	com.nvidia.nvroothelper.plist (NVIDIA Corporation - installed 2018-06-08)
[Loaded]	com.bjango.istatmenus.installerhelper.plist (Bjango Pty Ltd - installed 2018-06-12)
[Running]	com.bjango.istatmenus.helper.mas.plist (Bjango Pty Ltd - installed 2018-06-12)
[Running]	com.adobe.acc.installer.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2018-05-29)
[Loaded]	com.adobe.agsservice.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2018-05-30)
[Loaded]	com.ambrosiasw.ambrosiaaudiosupporthelper.daemon.plist (Ambrosia Software, Inc. - installed 2015-09-10)
[Running]	com.adobe.agmservice.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2018-05-30)
[Running]	com.bjango.istatmenus.daemon.plist (Bjango Pty Ltd - installed 2018-06-12)

User Launch Agents:

[Running]	com.spotify.webhelper.plist (Spotify - installed 2018-06-11)
[Loaded]	com.dropbox.DropboxMacUpdate.agent.plist (Dropbox, Inc. - installed 2018-05-31)
[Loaded]	com.valvesoftware.steamclean.plist (? 0 - installed 2018-05-31)
[Loaded]	com.adobe.GC.Invoker-1.0.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2018-05-30)
[Loaded]	com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist (? 0 - installed 2018-05-29)

User Login Items:

Lightshot Screenshot Application (Mac App Store - installed 2018-05-29)

(/Applications/Lightshot Screenshot.app)

Dropbox Application (Dropbox, Inc. - installed 2018-06-06)

(/Applications/Dropbox.app)

iTerm Application (GEORGE NACHMAN - installed 2018-06-12)

(/Applications/iTerm.app)

TheClockLoginHelper SMLoginItem (Mac App Store - installed 2018-05-29)

(/Applications/The Clock.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/TheClockLoginHelper.app)

iStat Menus Agent SMLoginItem (Mac App Store - installed 2018-06-12)

(/Applications/iStat Menus.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/iStat Menus Agent.app)

iStat Menus Status SMLoginItem (Mac App Store - installed 2018-06-12)

(/Applications/iStat Menus.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/iStat Menus Status.app)

Internet Plug-ins:

AdobeAAMDetect: 3.0.0.0 (installed 2018-05-29)

QuickTime Plugin: 7.7.3 (installed 2018-06-08)

3rd Party Preference Panes:

NVIDIA Driver Manager (installed 2018-06-08)

Time Machine:

Skip System Files: No

Mobile backups:

Auto backup: Yes

Volumes being backed up:

HDD: Disk size: 511.90 GB - Disk used: 164.02 GB

Destinations:

N**************e [Network] (Last used)

Total size: 23.43 TB

Total number of backups: 4

Oldest backup: 2018-06-14 16:46:33

Last backup: 2018-06-17 14:48:05

Top Processes by CPU:

Process (count)	Source	% of CPU	Location
WindowServer	Apple	5
iStatMenusHelper	Bjango Pty Ltd	2
Adobe Desktop Service	Adobe Systems, Inc.	1
kernel_task	Apple	1
iStat Menus Status.app	Mac App Store	1

Top Processes by Memory:

Process (count)	Source	RAM usage	Location
kernel_task	Apple	3.10 GB
com.apple.WebKit.WebContent (7)	Apple	1.07 GB
photoanalysisd	Apple	357 MB
lsd (2)	Apple	346 MB
installd	Apple	301 MB

Top Processes by Network Use:

Process	Source	Input	Output	Location
com.apple.WebKit.Networking	Apple	3 MB	100 KB
mDNSResponder	Apple	2 MB	128 KB
Dropbox	Dropbox, Inc.	781 KB	750 KB
apsd	Apple	209 KB	112 KB
netbiosd	Apple	110 KB	13 KB

Top Processes by Energy Use:

Process (count)	Source	Energy (0-100)	Location
iStatMenusHelper	Bjango Pty Ltd	21
WindowServer	Apple	0
iStat Menus Status.app	Mac App Store	0
iStatMenusDaemon	Bjango Pty Ltd	0
Core Sync	Adobe Systems, Inc.	0

Virtual Memory Information:

Available RAM	54.64 GB
Free RAM	48.57 GB
Used RAM	9.36 GB
Cached files	6.07 GB
Swap Used	0 B

Software Installs (past 30 days):

Name	Version	Install Date
Security Update 2018-001	2018-05-29
NVIDIA Web Driver 387.10.10.10.30.107	387.10.10.10.30.107	2018-05-29
iTunes	12.7.5	2018-05-29
MRTConfigData	1.32	2018-05-29
Disk Speed Test	3.1	2018-05-29
TextWrangler	5.5.2	2018-05-29
Speedtest	1.5	2018-05-29
The Clock	3.1	2018-05-29
Lightshot Screenshot	2.18	2018-05-29
Wunderlist	3.4.8	2018-05-29
Parcel	3.2	2018-05-29
QuickNFO	1.1	2018-05-29
Kindle	1.23.3	2018-05-29
Yoink	3.4.3	2018-05-29
Magnet	2.1.0	2018-05-30
WhatsApp	0.2.9230	2018-05-30
AmbrosiaAudioSupport	4.1.4	2018-05-30
Steam Input	4357.73.42	2018-05-31
Gatekeeper Configuration Data	140	2018-05-31
Geekbench 4	4.2.3	2018-06-01
NVIDIA Web Driver 387.10.10.10.35.106	387.10.10.10.35.106	2018-06-08
iStat Menus	6.11	2018-06-12
The Unarchiver	4.0.0	2018-06-17
Keynote	8.0	2018-06-17
Numbers	5.0	2018-06-17
Pages	7.0	2018-06-17

Diagnostics Information (past 7 days):

2018-06-15 09:53:28 photoanalysisd Crash

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/PhotoAnalysis.framework/Versions/A/Support/pho toanalysisd

*** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '*** -[__NSSetM addObject:]: object cannot be nil'

terminating with uncaught exception of type NSException

abort() called

2018-06-13 20:14:10 installd CPU

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/PackageKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/inst alld

2018-06-12 00:15:37 Dropbox.app CPU (3 times)

/Applications/Dropbox.app

2018-06-12 00:14:04 smcFanControl.app Crash (5 times)

/Applications/smcFanControl.app

*** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSRangeException', reason: '*** -[__NSArrayM objectAtIndexedSubscript:]: index 5 beyond bounds [0 .. 4]'

terminating with uncaught exception of type NSException

abort() called

2018-06-11 00:29:46 mds_stores Crash (3 times)

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Metadata .framework/Versions/A/Support/mds_stores

[0x70000a9b5000] sdb2.c:2180: failed assertion '0' /private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000000000000/T

[0x70000a9b5000] page_release: page 1609 used_bytes 196870 disk page size 16384

End of report

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Answer 12

Jun 14, 2018 3:56 PM in response to AlexPonsin

There are not enough frame numbers to run 1500 byte frames and get Gigabit data throughput. It sounds like that PC is adapting to a larger frame size, and the Mac may be not at that setting.

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Answer 13

Jun 14, 2018 4:07 PM in response to AlexPonsin

try 8182.

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Answer 14

AlexPonsin Author

Level 1

14 points

Jun 19, 2018 7:35 PM in response to AlexPonsin

Anymore ideas ? Or should I just assume that Macs are simply incapable of using a 1 Gbps connection ?

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Answer 15

AlexPonsin Author

Level 1

14 points

Jun 11, 2018 2:34 PM in response to glen230

Thx for the feedback, but in addition to the macbook I have a macmini and a macpro, both who have native ethernet, so no dongle. And on the macbook with the dongle I get the full 1Gbs on the upload... so i really don't think it's a dongle pb. The macs are somehow limiting the download speeds, maybe some sort of security or whatever, but I can't pin point it

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Gigabit internet, download is slower than upload on all ethernet connected Macs in the house (windows PCs are fine)

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