Hi,
I am looking for help with a VPN performance issue using remote desktop. Here is the setup information I am using:
Remote Site: Cisco RV042 VPN router also serving DHCP for all of the computers behind it. From the router I am going into a small 16 port 10/100 unmanaged Netgear switch. There are three specific computers I am trying to access with the remote desktop. One of them is running XP Pro SP3 and the other two are Vista Business 32-Bit. The internet connection at this remote site is a broadband DSL with 512kbps up and 6mbps down. I have checked the actual speed and I am getting an average of 440 up and about 3mbps down.
The client side: I am using the Linksys VPN Client software that came with the router to make the tunnel. The machine I am using is very fast and the internet connection is: 3 Mbps Up and 12.5 Mbps Down. I check the actual speed and I am getting an average of 2.8Mbps Up and 6Mbps down.
Router Configuration: I am using most of the default settings with the router and have created a tunnel to connect with. I have tried changing the MTU settings from auto to manual with different values from 1430 to 1500 but the performance has not improved.
Problem: I make a connection thru the tunnel no problem and remote into all three of these computers. I have used our accounting software on one computer and had decent performance. The problem starts when any graphic intensive page is opened ( i.e. Internet Explorer ) Even just opening up to the default home page of Google takes a long time to render the page.
Things I have tried: I have scaled back all of the settings in the remote desktop client on my machine to try to improve performance. We currently use gotomypc.com to access these machines and have good response and performance from them. Of course the gotomypc.com client does not display in full resolution like the remote desktop client. I tried to use the included windows VPN connection client but couldn't get it to work. One thing I have noticed is that under my network connections list, I now have a "Cisco VPN Connection" connection that is disabled. I have tried to enable it and then connect with the VPN client but it fails to connect. If I disable this connection, the VPN connection will work. I did not add this connection to the network connection list and I assume it is something that was created with I installed the software. On another note, I do have the Cisco VPN Client 5.0.03.0530 installed on my computer and I use it to connect to a corporate network. I made sure that this client was not running when I use the Linksys VPN Client. I don't think having both of them installed on the computer is the problem but I could be wrong.
Questions: I guess my first question is do I have enough bandwidth at my remote site (512Kbps) to support using the remote desktop connection at a decent speed? Are there some settings on the router I could try to change to improve performance? Is the 10/100 switch at the remote site sufficent for the network or should I consider 1000 switch and network? I can remote into the computers at the remote site across the network and don't have any performance problems then. I have an option of increasing our bandwidth at the remote site to 1Mbps Up and 10Mbps Down if that would help. I having some networking knowledge but it is limited. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Brian
