stress test new LAN

rangor gubbins

rangor gubbins

rangor gubbins

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Joined
5 Aug 2006
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Location
Kent, UK
hi all,
I'm after some advice on how to 'stress test' a newly installed LAN.
We've refurbed our house, running cat6 all over the place. I've now terminated the cables into patch panels and RJ45 modules, continuity tested the terminations, and installed a Zyxel 24 port switch. Never done this before. How do i test that we've got a good connection on the network, no dropped packets, good speed, etc. without using the really expensive network testing gear like Fluke MS2-KIT. Is there some LAN stress test software that someone can recommend.
 
cheers.
Had a go wit iperf3. seems to do the job. I'm getting around 900 Mbits/s on most of the cables tested so far. one was a bit slower.
I assume iperf3 will let me know if any data gets lost/broken along the way?
 
rangor gubbins said:
cheers.
Had a go wit iperf3. seems to do the job. I'm getting around 900 Mbits/s on most of the cables tested so far. one was a bit slower.
I assume iperf3 will let me know if any data gets lost/broken along the way?
Click to expand...

Data always gets lost/broken along the way. It’s catered for in the TCP/IP protocols. One reason why WLAN is so much slower than a cable is that there is a lot more resend requests because data gets lost more often in WLAN.

Don’t get too hung up on testing. If you’re passing 900Mbps then the cable is probably fine. On CAT6 you really need to push a 10Gbps signal down it see any issues.
 
Thanks, that useful info.
I'm testing 34 cables (I got a bit carried away with running cables around the house - its not a big house!). For some of them I'm only getting around 600 Mbps using the default iperf3 settings. Does that indicate that either the cable or the terminal connection into the patch panel of rj45 module is dodgy? There's quite a bit of redundancy in the number of cables i have compared to what i need, so I can just avoid these slow ones. I could try re-terminating them to see if that helps?
 
You could reterminate them but the likelihood is that you’ve bent a cable wrong, or nicked a bit of internal sheath and unless you’re ready to pull the cable again, you could just be doing a lot of work for very little gain.

Personally, I’d just enjoy the network and not worry about data transfer speeds on cables that may never get used.
 
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