diff --git a/slurm/run_streaming_matrix.sh b/slurm/run_streaming_matrix.sh
index 85527b978..5e9ad6ae8 100755
--- a/slurm/run_streaming_matrix.sh
+++ b/slurm/run_streaming_matrix.sh
@@ -9,8 +9,13 @@
 # per-job by SLURM (check `sacct -j <id> --format=JobID,State,MaxRSS,ReqMem`). Submit from a login node
 # inside the repo:  bash slurm/run_streaming_matrix.sh
 #
+# SERIAL (default 1): chain the jobs with --dependency=afterany so SLURM runs exactly ONE at a time. This
+# is important for a bandwidth benchmark — concurrent jobs would share the network to the Hub/bucket and
+# corrupt every throughput number. `afterany` means a failed/OOM'd job does not stall the chain. Set
+# SERIAL=0 to let the scheduler run them in parallel (only for OOM-isolation testing, not for throughput).
+#
 # Knobs (env overrides):
-#   REPO_ID, BUCKET, WARM_BUCKET, OUT_DIR, NUM_BATCHES, TIME, MEM, GPUS
+#   REPO_ID, BUCKET, WARM_BUCKET, OUT_DIR, NUM_BATCHES, TIME, MEM, GPUS, SERIAL
 #   CPU_WORKERS / CPU_BUFFER  (cpu-decode jobs)   GPU_WORKERS / GPU_BUFFER (cuda-decode jobs, kept low to
 #   bound VRAM + NVDEC sessions).   RUN  ("python" by default; set RUN="uv run python" if using uv).
 #   SOURCES / MODES / DECODES  to run a subset (e.g. SOURCES="hub bucket" DECODES="cpu").
@@ -26,6 +31,7 @@ NUM_BATCHES=${NUM_BATCHES:-200}
 TIME=${TIME:-01:00:00}
 MEM=${MEM:-64G}
 GPUS=${GPUS:-1}
+SERIAL=${SERIAL:-1}             # 1 = run one job at a time (correct for bandwidth measurement)
 CPU_WORKERS=${CPU_WORKERS:-8}
 GPU_WORKERS=${GPU_WORKERS:-2}   # low on purpose: each cuda worker holds a CUDA context + NVDEC session
 CPU_BUFFER=${CPU_BUFFER:-4000}
@@ -48,6 +54,7 @@ data_root_for () {
 }
 
 n=0
+prev_jid=""
 for SOURCE in $SOURCES; do
   DATA_ROOT=$(data_root_for "$SOURCE")
   ROOTFLAG=""
@@ -55,10 +62,14 @@ for SOURCE in $SOURCES; do
   for MODE in $MODES; do
     for DECODE in $DECODES; do
       if [ "$DECODE" = cpu ]; then W=$CPU_WORKERS; B=$CPU_BUFFER; else W=$GPU_WORKERS; B=$GPU_BUFFER; fi
-      sbatch \
+      # Run strictly after the previous job so only one job touches the network at a time.
+      DEPFLAG=""
+      if [ "$SERIAL" = 1 ] && [ -n "$prev_jid" ]; then DEPFLAG="--dependency=afterany:$prev_jid"; fi
+      jid=$(sbatch --parsable \
         --job-name="bench_${SOURCE}_${MODE}_${DECODE}" \
         --nodes=1 --ntasks=1 --gpus="$GPUS" --cpus-per-task=$((W + 4)) \
         --mem="$MEM" --time="$TIME" --output="$REPO_DIR/logs/%x-%j.out" \
+        $DEPFLAG \
         ${ACCOUNT:+--account=$ACCOUNT} ${PARTITION:+--partition=$PARTITION} ${QOS:+--qos=$QOS} \
         --wrap "set -euo pipefail; cd '$REPO_DIR'; \
           export TOKENIZERS_PARALLELISM=false HF_HOME=\${HF_HOME:-\$SCRATCH/hf_home}; \
@@ -66,12 +77,17 @@ for SOURCE in $SOURCES; do
             --repo_id $REPO_ID $ROOTFLAG \
             --mode $MODE --source $SOURCE --video_decode_device $DECODE \
             --batch_size $BATCH_SIZE --num_workers $W --buffer_size $B \
-            --num_batches $NUM_BATCHES --out_dir $OUT_DIR"
+            --num_batches $NUM_BATCHES --out_dir $OUT_DIR")
+      jid=${jid%%;*}  # strip ';cluster' suffix on federated setups
+      echo "submitted job $jid  bench_${SOURCE}_${MODE}_${DECODE}${DEPFLAG:+  (after $prev_jid)}"
+      prev_jid=$jid
       n=$((n + 1))
     done
   done
 done
 
-echo "Submitted $n jobs. Watch:  squeue -u \$USER"
-echo "Results land in $OUT_DIR/<source>_<mode>_bs${BATCH_SIZE}_w<workers>_<decode>.{json,csv}"
-echo "After they finish, summarize:  python benchmarks/streaming/summarize_results.py $OUT_DIR"
+echo
+echo "Submitted $n jobs ($([ "$SERIAL" = 1 ] && echo 'serial chain — one runs at a time' || echo 'parallel'))."
+echo "Watch:  squeue -u \$USER         (later jobs show reason '(Dependency)' until their turn)"
+echo "Results: $OUT_DIR/<source>_<mode>_bs${BATCH_SIZE}_w<workers>_<decode>.{json,csv}"
+echo "Summarize when done:  $RUN benchmarks/streaming/summarize_results.py $OUT_DIR"