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Runaway Bandwidth
20 June, 2008 in Network
Now that Vista Service Pack 1 is here, Vista users are feeling somewhat underwhelmed. There were plenty of fixes, but there was neither parting of the clouds nor chorus of angels to hail its coming. In fact, there have even been a few cries of anguish caused by Service Pack 1 and one of its little-known fixes.
Microsoft has introduced a feature called “Network Throttling” to try to improve multimedia playback. This is only really supposed to come into effect when users are playing multimedia content. Because network packet processing and multimedia playback are both resource-intensive, Microsoft has a throttling mechanism built into Service Pack 1 that will lower your overall network performance while viewing multimedia (such as MP3 files, Youtube video, or Flash content).
As stated, Microsoft has said that the packet throttling "...will come into effect only when you are running multimedia programs that are time sensitive." We have heard multiple reports, however, of packet throttling occurring pretty much all the time.
It is very important to note, however, that this issue may not affect you at all. If all you do is surf the internet or play online games, bandwidth throttling will not affect you in the slightest, because Vista will not throttle your bandwidth so much that your internet connection drops in performance. However if you use your Network connection for high speed data transfer you will definitely be affected.
Before we get into the fix, let’s establish two groups: those who need the fix and those who do not need the fix:
Those who need the fix:
+Anyone who REQUIRES Gigabit Ethernet speeds at all times for professional uses
+Anyone who wants to be able to transfer files across their Gigabit-capable 10/100/1000 routers at full speeds
+Anyone who wants to be able to transfer files across their Wireless-N network at full speeds
Those who do not need the fix:
+Anyone who only uses their network connection to access the internet
+Anyone who only uses Wireless 802.11 A, B, or G to access their router
+Anyone who only has a 10/100 Mb/s ethernet router
While Gigabit Ethernet has become ubiquitous in modern computers, there are several reasons why very few people actually use their Gigabit connections. First, you need to buy a new network switch or router; then, you have to make sure the other computers on your network also feature Gigabit capabilities; finally, you have to actually be using the network enough that Gigabit is going to mean something to you. Wireless N connections have the same problem. Even if your new computer has a Wireless N card and you have purchased a new Wireless N router, every other wireless computer in your house needs to support Wireless N before you can take advantage of the connection, because your internet connection is still just a fraction of your old Wireless G router's speed.
Please note that you should always back up your registry before making changes, just in case you make a change somewhere you should not have made one.
To backup your registry, simply click on the "My Computer" heading on the left-hand pane of the RegEdit program, then click on "File" -> "Export" and name the backup file something you will easily remember.
If you have not run into a scenario where you clearly need full Gigabit (or N) bandwidth, we do not recommend this fix, as Microsoft states that multimedia playback may suffer from stuttering when Network Throttling is not used.
With these disclaimers out of the way, if you fall into the grouping of individuals who need this fix, read on.
Click on Start and type in "Regedit" in the search box. Press "enter" to open the registry editor.
Expand the following trees:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
--SOFTWARE
----Microsoft
------Windows NT
--------CurrentVersion
----------Multimedia
------------SystemProfile
The value you want to change is called: NetworkThrottlingIndex
Network throttling can be completely turned off by right-clicking on it, selecting “Modify,” and setting the value to FFFFFFFF (hexadecimal).
We hope that these tips can save you a little mental anguish the next time you need to make use of your high-performance networking components.