Network - poor performance even on FTP (1 server, two clients)

HI Guys

im trying to get HD stuff to stream and its jerky as hell so, in order to rule out the network I dropped back to a x-over ethernet cable with the server direct to a device (I tried a laptop and a HD media player). However, this was still jerky. So, next step, I put a free FTP server on the server and then tried to connect via FTP and copy over the file. The best I could get was 11meg a second.

For the life of me, in my simple view of things, all seems good so, I thought i'd ask the experts for tips. Please take a quick look at the specs below and see if you can see why I'm only getting 11meg and im open to suggestions!

Desktop(Ftp server)->x-over->Laptop(Ftp client) = 11meg a second
Desktop(Ftp server)->homeplug(bedroom)->Laptop(Ftp client) = 4meg a second

Ouch. So none of these are particuly good considering the direct connection with nothing in the middle.

The PC's specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 @3.00
Ram 4gb
Vista Home Premium 64
Boot disks SATA1: 2xWD Raptors (stripe)
Storage SATA2: 2x Hitachi 1TB disks (stripe)

Important bit?:

Generic Marvell Yukon 88E8056 Ethernet Controller

Settings below, any ideas?

• Flow control - TX/RX Enabled
• Interrupt Moderation - Enabled
• IPv4 Checksum Rx Enabled
• Jumbo Packet - 1514 (smallest option, cant disable)
• Large Send Offload (IPv4) - Disabled
• Max IRQ per sec - 10,000
• Priority & VLAN - Priority and VLAN Disabled
• Receive Buffers - 512
• Speed & Duplex - Auto-Negotiation (tried forcing 100/full)
• TCP Checksum Offload (IPv4) - Tx & Rx Enabled
• Transmit Buffers - 256
• UDP Checksum Offload (IPv4) - Tx & Rx Enabled

The devices connect at 100meg but I can't see where to see if this is Full duplex or not.

So, any ideas? I'm really struggling.... and very confused :4-dontkno

Thanks in advance!