Beware: Asus Network iControl can kill upload speeds

[Rataan]

At least it did for me according to web based speed tests. Now, if somebody wants to post and tell me that it really isn't a problem and that it just looks like a problem, then I won't argue it at this point, because I haven't extensively tested it with actual uploads. But if anyone sees speed test upload speeds 20x slower than they should be, this may be the reason why.

BTW, this is an Asus Sabertooth Z77.

 

[hamletarcher]

thank you! my network was so slow that it was close to unusable. i suspected that it was icontrol, and tried tweaking its settings to no avail. eventually i just disabled it and the network became 100x faster. even if icontrol has the potential to speed up the network (far from certain), it is a major failure for it to cripple so many people's network by default.

 

[Guest]

I just want to say that I had the exact same problem and what I did was to kill process after process to see if there was a change in speed.
I have a Asus P8Z77-LX and had a speeds like 85Mbit down and betwwen 1-10Mbit uplink.
Most often there was 1-2Mbit upload. I have fiber 100/100.
The process that changed the speed was NETSVCHELP.EXE
When I killed that process the speed became 96Mbit down and 89 MBit Up.
A major difference. I search the web and find this thread of discussion and now I simply uninstalled the Net Help from the AI Suite II and now my computer are as fast as it could be.
Just wanted to say thanks for all the tips in this thread.

 

[mediaworx]

I wish I had the same luck as you guys/gals. I opened AI suite and unchecked iControl, rebooted and still the same. Am I doing something wrong? Does it require an un-install of the AI suite?

 

[mediaworx]

OK, so now I try something else. I reinstalled the AI suite and it reboots, the settings still have icontrol OFF. still no luck. So I turn iControl Back ON, go to speed test and VIOLA! I'm getting 25mb upload-----WITH iCONTROL TURNED ON. WTF!
I don't care if it's off or on at this point, just as long as it works. LOL!
Thanks to all the people who shared their story and input. It all helps.

 

[Ratatosk]

Had to recover my password for TH forum just to post a thank you to Rataan.

I was actually checking around to see if I could find info on why iControl always wanted to update itself everytime I started up my computer, it was annoying.

Then I read Rataan's post and I started to think about how different the feel to playing QuakeLive was now but since I had just gotten my new mobo (Sabertooth Z77) with new mem and GPU running, I thought it was a difference I would have to live with, that is was part of the network hardware or the new GPU.

Turning off Network iControl gave me back the responsiveness in the game.
iControl made the game feel like the packets were running through syrup.

 

[Linuxs]

At least it did for me according to web based speed tests. Now, if somebody wants to post and tell me that it really isn't a problem and that it just looks like a problem, then I won't argue it at this point, because I haven't extensively tested it with actual uploads. But if anyone sees speed test upload speeds 20x slower than they should be, this may be the reason why.

BTW, this is an Asus Sabertooth Z77.

THANK YOU!
I was just about for reinstall windows. Got only 1mbit upload... The dl speed was ok but the upload was horrible since i have a 100/100 fiber. The thing that confused me was that the virtual machine I had on my PC got full speed...
But now, after turning it OFF, everything is fine again. (Z77 Deluxe).

Thank you again! 🙂

Br Linus

 

[PenaManso]

Your eagerness to flame, coupled with poor reading comprehension, fails to impress. Let me clarify: I spent too much time trying to figure out why I was getting 0.20 Mbps when I normally get 4.0 Mbps in web based upload speed tests. This was an attempt to save others some of that frustration.

I also glean from your response that the amount of testing I have done is infinitely greater than what you have done, which is zero. I'll do more testing eventually to see how bad it really is, if others don't beat me to it, but for now the off switch works for me. What I already know it does is bad enough. And yes, it does matter if your new high performance PC fails every speed test on the Net.

😀

A big thank you Rataan - from Portugal!

Your post saved me from becoming crazy...
I just built my new desktop a few days ago (and I can assure you it was not the first) and never came across such ridiculous issue.

I kept my usual ISP which has been giving me 120Mbps download / 8MBps upload (fiber service) and download speeds turned very erratic (ranging from 3Mps to 30Mps ! in very near testing moments) and the upload speed a true nightmare coming down to 0.4 Mbps...

I did install/enable Network iControl on my ASUS H77 mobo and just tried your tip and the miracle happened!

I was already cursing and disabling almost everything on Kaspersky IS 2013, as well as other services...

Thank you once more.

 

[reggs]

Thank you OP. Switching this pile of crud off saw my Upload speed jump from 0.2M back up to 13m.
Switch it off in Asus AI Suite immediately!
I too was just about to pack up my new motherboard ASUS P877-V Pro.
Couldn't care what anyone else says but you shouldn't have to tweak an out of the box program
just to regain your LAN speed. Pathetic !

 

[VanLazarus]

THANK YOU Rataan!!!! I thought I was losing my mind. My new PC suddenly had super slow internet after installing Asus AI Suite to overclock my PC. Little did I know that installing that suite also installed Network iControl, which, ironically, kills internet speed performance! The internet became unusable. Finally, after much searching, I found your post. After disabling (then uninstalling) Network iControl within the Asus Suite manager thingy, my internet speed was back to where it should be. Thanks for sharing your finding!

 

[auto98]

Another person who signed up just to add their problems with iControl (surprised Apple haven't sued with that name ). I found the problem after a couple of hours, then googled it and found this thread

I realise that potentially it is only showing slow speeds in speed tests because of prioritising, but prioritising should mean that it gets lower priority IF it is busy - it shouldn't cripple the speeds if the upload is otherwise not being used. What also irked me was that even with speeds of 0.3 of the normal 9.x, it also took 20 seconds to even start the upload tests (instant with it off).

Of course, it only being "prioritisation" is redundant when it also makes things that need to be high priority slow also, like gaming.

 

[Rasna]

At least it did for me according to web based speed tests. Now, if somebody wants to post and tell me that it really isn't a problem and that it just looks like a problem, then I won't argue it at this point, because I haven't extensively tested it with actual uploads. But if anyone sees speed test upload speeds 20x slower than they should be, this may be the reason why.

BTW, this is an Asus Sabertooth Z77.

*********************

Thanks Rataan,

I am ordering the ASUS P8Z77-V LK & the ASUS Sabertooth X79 mobo and am in the process of putting together a folder of issues to watch out for during the builds. Knowing about this will save me a lot of time and headaches.

As for

kivblue wrote :

Ok there's nothing wrong with iControl, just because people don't know how to use it doesn't mean the utility is the problem. Do you really seriously think the software engineers would design a utility that actually works the other way around? That's a very strong and inconsiderate accusation.

Puhleeeeez,

As far as I can tell from the posts, Little or no documentation in the box or on the ASUS site that gives config info for the utility, and it doesn't seem to bee intuitive. Yes, I do believe that s/w engineers design utilities and tools that are either nonproductive and/or counter-intuitive. This appears to be a case of "Just because you can do it, doesn't necessarily mean that you should" design the "tool".

 

[csullens]

Beware, lack of knowledge can kill upload speeds and lead to posting incorrect information with no testing.

It prioritizes current/selected programs over others... I highly doubt its going to prioritize a meaningless 5 second speed test. that's not what its meant for.

I'm so glad I ignored this thoughtless reply and kept reading. OP has saved countless people countless hours and dollars worth of troubleshooting. I was convinced that my ISP or modem was to be blamed and I found this thread just in time to cancel the service call and prevent a massive waste of time. Fix worked like a charm for me. Also, actual upload times improved drastically, not just the results of the online speed test. Thanks OP. As for unksol, try to have a little humility for goodness sake...who knows how many people saw your comment and just moved on assuming that you knew what you were talking about. It's a real shame that you were the first person to reply as nearly every post afterward affirms this as a real problem for a lot of people. Ironic you accuse him of having a lack of knowledge, and posting incorrect information with no testing when you clearly had no knowledge of the issue, had performed zero testing yourself, and indeed YOU were incorrect. A touch hypocritical don't ya think?

 

[nospecs]

I wish i had seen this thread earlier, I spent countless hours in the last month to find out the cause of my slow connection speed and my problems with several Flash videos that would not play on my newly assembled computer.

I only found out after noticing ping bursts from some program and disabling one task after the other, that this was coming from some Asustek program, in the end I found the culprit in iControl, and after disabling it, videos again show and my already meager upload speed is a tad higher again.

Thanks to the OP for pointing out the problems with iControl, I just wanted to add the part about non-playing videos, which lead me (unnecessarily) to several un- and re-installs of Flash and my browsers and many other programs (the slow upload speed was not very noticeable for me, as it is at a maximum of 0.4 Mbps anyway).

 

[Michael999]

Asus P8Z77-V LX = same problem

That s an unbelievable pain. Thougt Asus would be the best in motherboards. Issues over issues (grafics). My 5 y old Abit in9-32x max is a masterpiece against this **** design.

Will never consider to go with Asus!! NEVER AGAIN!

Looking hours for a solution after shocked over the speed drop. Use it for business. Who pays for that? It s me! Thats more then 10x times then the mb costs. WTF!!



Absolutely right! It has to work out of the box. Everythink else is bulls****

"I realise that potentially it is only showing slow speeds in speed tests because of prioritising, but prioritising should mean that it gets lower priority IF it is busy - it shouldn't cripple the speeds if the upload is otherwise not being used. What also irked me was that even with speeds of 0.3 of the normal 9.x, it also took 20 seconds to even start the upload tests (instant with it off)."

 

[PTNLemay]

Sabertooth Z77 + i5-3570K here, OP's theory is confirmed for me. (Connected via ethernet to a D-Link router, if that matters)

I was messing around with updates and stuff and decided to try turning iControl on. I did a speed test beforehand and found ~62 Mb/s down, 3 Mb/s up. With iControl on download speed stayed exactly the same, but uploads slowed down so much the test actually failed. I turned it off, upload speeds are back to normal. I've left iControl off since I built my PC back in... June I think it was, just because I wasn't sure exactly what it's supposed to do. If my internet isn't broken, no need to fix it. This only confirms my earlier opinion that it's useless.

I don't see why people are hating on Asus though... aside for this pointless little bit of software (which is easy to turn off), their motherboards are still solid.

 

[alecws]

Awesome thread! I spent 3 hrs on the phone with my ISP yesterday before I found this post. Not only was iControl throttling the speed on my new PC but also the other wired PCs in my office. Multiple tests on speedtest.net showed my laptop with 5.6Mbps downloads and 1.1Mbps uploads and my new PC with .4 and .06 respectively and another wired PC on my network with .5 and .1. When my new PC was unplugged from the router, my other wired PC's speeds immediately bumped up to match the wireless laptop speeds.

In further experimentation, I found (with everything plugged in again) that shutting off AISuite on my new PC sped up its connection to 3.8Mbps and .6Mbps (still not to where it needed to be) but allowed the other wired PC to speed up to full speed.

Finally, when I found this thread, I immediately went into AISuite and unchecked Network iControl under Settings only to find I was still throttled to 3.8Mbps downloads and .6Mbps uploads. With this unchecked I noticed that the processes NetiCtrlTray.exe and NetSvcHelp.exe were still running. I revisited some of the earlier posts on this thread and found that I really needed to look for an OFF switch which I found under Tool -> Network iControl. Turning off the switch brought my new PC up to full speed finally!

Thanks!

 

[djsprinkle]

OP you're a lifesaver, thanks. I recently bought a Sabertooth Z77 and foolishly installed this software with the AI Suite and have been dumbfounded by the slow speeds. After a few weeks, I did a complete OS re-install trying to narrow down the problem since everything worked fine in safe mode but no malicious software could be detected. But sure enough I had the same problem after re-installing Windows and icontrol. I didn't link the two together at first but I was running out of ideas when I found this thread and realized that it was the fail Asus software all along. I just completely uninstalled it through AI Suite and now everything is in order after weeks of frustration.

Oh and this was not just slowing synthetic benchmarks, my general web browsing speeds were crippled.

 

[chrisbower]

Download was my problem - with Asus Network iControl 1.36Mbps - without Asus Network iControl 7Mbps...

M5A97 with FX4100 on a WGPS606 with Win8. Took a meticulous rebuild with frequent Speedtests to isolate it - and I only discovered this message trail after discovering the problem.

What a disaster this software component is... Why did testing not pick up the problem..?

Ho Hum

 

[othermike27]

Disabling Network iControl also solved three other issues for me on a rebuild (with ASUS P8H77-M, Core i3225, Windows 7 Home Prem 64 bit):

1. Noticed very slow page refresh when trying to view the gallery of thumbnail images on many products on Newegg's site

2. Mind-numbing slowdown on file transfers from the rebuilt system to other computers on my LAN. Example - with a test file of about 6.5 MB size, transfer using Windows Explorer drag/drop from this PC took a minute or two to calculate, then displayed "about 6 min 30 seconds left" on the transfer operation, and it took that long and more. Transferring the same file the same way between 2 other systems and from either of those to the rebuild was "instantaneous" - so fast you wouldn't even think about an issue. Solved this by disabling IPv6 in adapter properties - something that Microsoft recommends not doing, but the only way I could recover decent transfer speeds.

3. While trying lots of other net-suggested fixes for speed slowdowns, I realized that I could not change any of the advanced properties of my NIC (Realtek onboard the ASUS mobo). I could select enable or disable, but OKing out of the change then going back in showed that no changes were recorded.

Much frustration!!! Then, ran across a thread on AnandTech that led me here. Turning off iControl solved ALL of the above issues. No idea why. I see an earlier post in this thread from ASUS rep saying there is a patch, but I think I'll just enjoy my reclaimed speed for awhile with iControl OFF.

 

[benjamincakir]

I have had so many problems with this, I have always thought it was the onboard adapter, it has driven me to tears, that little "yellow hazard" sign next to my Wifi bars. A new, $60 PCI Wifi adapter sits on my table, waiting for installation. This thread is my savior.

One question, I use AI Suite to OC, how do I uninstall without problems?

 

[AzJazz]

I just finished my Asus Sabertooth Z77 build this morning, and was confused by my low Download / Upload speeds (5 MB/s down, 3 MB/s up).

I read this post, and want to thank the Rataan!

I uninistalled iControl, rebooted, and my speeds are back to 65 MB/s down and 12 MB/s up!

Cudos, Rataan!

AJ

 

[malloc244]

I just installed an Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe and after numerous wipes, thinking I had screwed something up trying to get the speed up to where it belongs, I was ready to send it back until I read this post. Thank you a lot. I turned off iNetwork Control and my speed went from 0.3Mbps back up to a more respectable 53Mbps.

 

[samfuzi]

I had the exact same problem. When i saw this thread I uninstalled the Asus AI tool, and now my network is working perfectly again.

In my case the Asus AI tool made the internet preformance so bad that I had problems browsing news on the web. I could just FORGET to stream youtube movies @ more than 480p...

But now, after uninstallin the AI tool, the internet preformance is back to normal!

1080p steaming here I come!

Thx for posting this warning!!!

/Sam

 

[Torisen]

I have spent many hours over the last few months trying to figure out why certain web pages either wouldn't run, or would take a long time - up to ten minutes at times - to load on my computer that was otherwise extremely fast. Among other sites I had huge issues with Hotmail, with my bank's website, with some online homework websites, and with a video conferencing website. Other (usually simpler) sites had no issues.

After turning off the icontrol program, I'm not finding these issues.

My first attempt to turn it off was going into the "Settings - application" for AISuite and unchecking the box. Didn't seem to work. When I instead left that checked as enabled, but went into the "Tools", opened iControl, and turned it off there - suddenly everything sped up.

Will keep an eye on things, but this looks to have solved a long-term and severe problem that I have been consistently having with a large number of websites.

 

[tba]

I just made a new account to thank you. I've had charter cable out to my home twice ,spend who know how many hours trying to fix this problem. as soon as i turned off icontrol, i went from 2mbps to over 30+mbps on download and from1.2 mbps to over 4+ mbps upload.
I never leave any comments but i want to THANK YOU!

Here's a copy of my last test:

Last Result:
Download Speed: 51.74 Mbps (6.47 MB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 4.26 Mbps (0.53 MB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 26 ms
Friday, March 01, 2013 6:26:45 AM