Here's an odd one:

NFS access from my workstation has been sluggish, lately.  Large reads, such as file copies, are fine, but short reads, like pulling ID3 tags from a ton of MP3's, are terribly slow.  Directory listings, like find /mountpoint -print, hang up for seconds at a time.

I've tried all of the obvious:

• Checked speed/duplex settings on both client and server (both 1000/full/auto)
• Checked DMA settings on server
• Rebooted both client and server (windoze knee-jerk reaction)
• Installed Debian's nfs-user-server instead of nfs-kernel-server
• Switched to TCP NFS, and tried a pletora of other options
• Checked dmesg for *anything* out of the ordinary
• Verified MTU on both stations

... all to no avail.

The only thing that makes a difference is network usage on the client.  Yes, *any* kind of moderate utilization makes NFS speed up.  A simple "ssh anyotherhost cat /dev/zero" makes NFS run at normal speed.  The instant I ^C that process, it slows down to a crawl.

I'm confused!

FYI, server is a dual P3/800 running 2.6.15-1-686-smp (Debian), and client is a single Athlon64 3200+ running 2.6.15-gentoo-r7.  Hosts are connected via Gigabit Ethernet over copper.

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