Network update

A quick network update today. This is because I was doing some Java development this weekend, and realized this morning that my compile times have improved by an order of magnitude since a few months ago. I wondered why, then realized I had done some network ‘admin’ and that must be the reason.

First, an update on more recent things: since locking down the firewall appliance, things have been stable. No IP reassignment or other problems. I also know to check/change the system time on the OpenBSD box any time I reboot that server (due to incorrect BIOS time).

As for my network speed, it started because I was getting really tired of my SSH sessions being clogged with strange control characters and other weirdness including sudden session drops. When I went to check SSH on other machines including my mac and my other win7 box, there were no issues at all. That meant it was my current win7 machine.

Additionally, anything involving the network on this machine seemed really slow… file copies, compiling (it involves a remote server)… All very slow.

Usually one suspects the antivirus when network stuff is slow, but all machines use the same antivirus, so that was less likely.

Checking google and then stack overflow, one culprit popped up. I have an NVIDEA graphics card on this machine, and I found repeated references to the installed gaming software as causing a lot of network grief. I followed the instructions to disable and/or remove the worst of it, and since then I must admit the network has run better. There are still spurious characters on my SSH sessions, but it’s a lot better. And, as I mentioned earlier, my compile times are much, much faster.

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