March 19, 2024

Finding your optimum MTU

Finding your optimum MTU can help get the best Internet speed. MTU stands for Maximum Transmission Unit, which is basically the size of the packet sent from your PC to the Internet.

Default MTU size

Cable = 1500
PPOE = 1492 or lower
VPN = 1300

Most routers allow you change the MTU from their Web GUI. It is usually set to 1500 or you can have it set to Auto. To change it on the PC’s is a little harder.

On Windows 7, open a command prompt

To check what the MTU is on all subinterfaces type

netsh interface ipv4 show subinterfaces

To set it type

netsh interface ipv4 set subinterface "Local Area Connection" mtu=1500 store=persistent

To find out what MTU to set, open a command prompt and type

ping -f -l 1472 www.yahoo.com

Using a -f switch sets it not to fragment the packets.
The -l switch is used to set the packet size.

I used www.yahoo.com as the destination to ping. You can use whichever.

1472 = Ethernet Default MTU
28 = Packet Header

1472 + 28 = 1500

If the packet can’t be sent because it would need to be fragmented you will get something similar to this:

Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.

So you will need to run the ping command with different packet sizes to determine the optimum packet size. Keep trying lower packet sizes by 10 (i.e. -l 1460, 1450, 1440, etc.) until you get a successful ping request. Raise your packet sizes by one until you get a “Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.”. The last successful value plus 28 will be your MTU value.
For example a packet size of 1460 succeeds, but 1461 fails, so 1460 + 28 = 1488.

I had the Cisco VPN software installed which changed my MTU to 1300. I uninstalled the software and rebooted, but my MTU still was set to 1300. I ran the netsh command above and it changed it, but after a reboot it reverted back to 1300.

I found the location in the registry where the MTU setting is kept and changed it there.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces

I then went through the different interfaces, until I found the one with my current IP for the Lan Interface. I edited the MTU and set the hexadecimal value of 5dc. Which sets the MTU to 1500. I closed the registry and rebooted. The MTU was now still set to 1500. Success.

DFS disabled on Windows 7

DFS (Distributed File System) not working on Avid Windows 7 PC’s. I had gotten a call from one of our editorial support techs. They were deploying Windows 7 PC’s on the domain with the Avid editing software.  They were not able to connect to DFS shares on the domain. This is the error they would try and connect to a DFS, “An unexpected network error has occurred.”   DFS has been working fine on our PC’s which use the same hardware as they did.  HP Z800’s the only difference is they had a PCI-E Controller for the Avid hardware.

The PC had the Avid Unity MediaNetwork client software installed. After checking online, it turns out the Avid Unity software disables DFS on Windows 7 by default. Here’s the PDF were I found out about this on page 17.

I was able to fix this remotely. I ran computer management from the Administrative Tools in the control panel | services | turned on Remote Registry.

I then ran regedit from Start | Run | regedit | File |  Connect Network Registry

I then just browsed to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Mup

and right click on DisableDfs entry and select modify.

Type 0 in the Value data text box to enable DFS or Type 1 to disable it.