Virtual network cards only 100mbs - how to speed up?

[dknapp]

I have a 1GB physical NIC on my 64-bit Windows 7 host. However, the virtual nics that are installed by Workstation 9 show they are running at only 100 mbs. Is there a way to have them run at the full 1GB instead of 100mbs? I cannot find where that is controlled and the virtual nics don't have a speed setting that I can find. I would like to have the full GB go all the way through to the virtual guests (all versions of Windows).

[orthohin]

If your VM is only reporting 100Mbps network speed, that is because you are using the VLANCE VMware NIC instead of the VMXNET NIC. Don't worry, it's a false indicator, your virtual NIC is still transmitting packets as fast as possible based on the PNIC or system bus speed, but you should upgrade to the VMXNET NIC wherever and whenever possible as it is a more efficient and slightly faster NIC than the slower-more-compatible VLANCE which is a virtualized old AMD PCNET Ethernet standby.

Regards,
Milton

[dknapp]

How do I go about doing that? I did not see any options in VMWare. Is it a dowload/update?

[continuum]

do you talk about the virtual adapters that are installed on the Host ?  - then just ignore it - it does not mean anything: the network speed is only limited by your CPU

[dknapp]

I have plenty of CPU power - Intel i7-2600 with 16 GB of ram for the host. The guests report the same processor. I still would like to know how to update the nic software as mentioned by the prior respondenent.

[continuum]

the earlier answer does only apply in case you misconfigured a Win7 VM to use vlance-nics.
That is highly unlikely.
If you see the 100mb/s in the host - then no driver change can help

[Scissor · Accepted solution]

You can change which virtualized NIC is presented to the Guest.  Edit the Guest's .vmx config file and add/edit the following line:

If you want an Emulated Intel adapter (I think this reports as a 1 Gb link speed):

ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000" 

...Or if you want the emulated vmxnet3 adapter (I think this reports as a 10 Gb link speed):

ethernet0.virtualDev = "vmxnet3"