[Samba] Transfer problems

[Daniel]

Hello everyone, 

I have a somewhat odd problem and have been trying (for a few days now) to 
get my head around it. Any help or advice you guys can give would be 
appreciated. (other then setting up a gigabit lan)

My previous setup was as follows:

Debian 2.2.r3, kernel 2.4.17 Samba 2.5 (I think). Max Transfer rate from my 
Windows 2000 machine to the Samba server and back = 8.24mb/sec. The sustained 
speed during large file transfers would normally be around 7.6mb. The router 
the and switch, that are being used on the network are both fine. I am able 
to transfer to another windows machine at 8mb/s, sustained.

Of course I had to @#$%! with the box and decided to reinstall (not happy 
with the partitioning). Anyway, I have since installed, Debian 2.2.r5, Kernel 
2.2.19. The same samba configuration file I had before with exactly the same 
hardware. Only, the Transfer rate goes up to about 8mb/sec...for a around 
10secs...then drops to next to nothing and keeps repeating this up untill the 
transfer has finished. Problem is the transfers take a lot longer. Me not 
happy.

http://www.dd.iij4u.or.jp/~okuyamak/Documents/tuning.english.html 
I have tried what was described in the above document but this hasn't 
improved anything at all. In fact one of the first things I did after the 
transfers went up and down sporadically is - I checked that:

socket option = IPTOS_LOWDELAY TCP_NODEALY SO_SNDBUS=8192 SO_RCVBUF=8192

The nic I am using is a 3Com 3C905B 100bTX. 

I have (the same as on my last install) fooled around with the 32-bit I/O and 
DMA. Installed "hdparm" and ran "hdparm -c  1 -k 1 -l 1 /dev/hda & hdb. Which 
pushed my internal transfer rate (bufferd disk reads) up from 12mb/s to about 
18mb/s.

Still, the transfers through the network are going up and down like a jojo. 

The only thing I can think off, which I am going to do in a second is 
compiling kernel 2.5.0. 

Regards, 

Daniel