i was transfering files from my brothers pc to mine over lan (ethernet) and was monitoring the windows taskmanager. i was connected at 100mbps and network utilization is 25 to 30%

Questions:
- does it mean im only utilizing 30% of the 100mbps? (30mbps?)
- is there a tweak or somethign i can do to increase it?

;(

For a more accurate measurement, try out Iperf.

Most often, I find that poor performance is due to crappy nics...

Also, bad drivers are just as much to blame as bad nics.

what they said.

Hubs and poor switches have the same effect as well, with poor bandwidth/collision management and a weak backplane they can adversly affect both latency and bandwidth.

It does help to pin the nics at their respected speeds so they wont have to negotiate duplexing and speeds.

will have to try the above myself, thnx guys.

Cheaper NICs also depend on free CPU time for performence. BTW what NICs are in use and any hubs and switches?