Win2k Apache 1.3 servers delivering inconsistent bandwidth

["Anders Chr. Skoe" <sk...@stanford.edu>]

Hi all,

I have a test lab with a few Win2k servers (Pent ~1GHz, ~1GB RAM)
running Apache 1.3.23.  Their interfaces are 100Mbps, full-duplex.  My
issue is as follows:

When I connect to these servers from client machines in the lab, data
is delivered at inconsistent bandwidths.  More specifically, results
are as follows:

Win2k client #1: 95% of the time, gets ~300 Kbps (will typically start out
at 2Mbps, then fall to 300 Kbps within 5 secs).  The rest of the time,
gets ~30 Mbps.

Win2k client #2: Same as Win2k client #1.

Win2k client #3: ~30 Mbps consistently.

Win98 clients: ~2 Mbps consistently (all Win98 clients have SP2).

WinXP client: ~30 Mbps consistently.

FreeBSD 4.5 client: ~2 Mbps consistently.

For each data point above, there is a single active client.  Initiating
multiple simultaneous downloads from a single server using different
machines will _sometimes_ increase the download speed of my slower Win2k
clients by ca. 20%.  There is negligible cross-traffic.

When I stop Apache & run IIS on the Win2k servers, then initiate a
download, I get approx. the full bandwidth available (~80 Mbps) over
the network (using any of the client machines).  I also get approx.
the full bandwidth available when doing ftp downloads from these
servers.

All machines are on a small, switched 100Mbps full-duplex LAN, with no
firewall.  I have upgraded from IE 5.0 -> 5.5 -> 6.0 on all Win
servers and clients, with no measurable influence on performance.  When
running the Win2k clients agains a SUN machine running Apache, I get the
full bandwidth (~80 Mbps).

What stumps me is the inconsistent bandwidth delivery using Apache on the
Win2k servers. Has anyone experienced anything similar?  Or does anyone
have suggestions for what is wrong?  The Apache install is very "simple,"
in the sense that I have not installed any additional modules, or modified
the configuration files in an attempt to filter or differentiate between
requests.

Thanks for any help.


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