WOT (Way off topic): Internet connection speed Featured

It could well be the cabling. If that is old Cat5 cable, you are nominally limited to

The NIC you buy as replacement should be rated for 1000BaseT since 100BaseT will not deliver 200Mhz.

That should say, 'will not deliver 200 Mb/s.'

Other thoughts:

It sounds like you have multiple machines on the house. If they are all wired connections via a switch, the switch itself can also be suspect for several reasons. The cheaper switches may not be able to drive all machines to full speed at once, so try using only the suspect machine with the others turned off. Also, try moving the cable to a different port on a switch. (You can start by just wiggling it to see if that makes a difference.) I have absolutely see bad ports and even more bad cables.

The consumer grade switches are also often complete garbage. I highly, highly recommend Buffalo brand switches. They are reasonably priced, well made, reliable, and - if you register them immediately - many come with lifetime warranties.

Finally, if you're going to go the wireless route ... good luck if your wireless hub is older. To deliver even just 200 Mb/s you're going to need a more modern, higher speed bit of electronics. Again, I avoid the bottom of the pile cheapo junk. I've not used Buffalo's wireless gear, but I've had good luck with the "top of the bottom" from Linksys - in $80-$100 range. I avoid D-Link and any of the off brand Asian products like the plague.

Networking is fun, they said. It will be a good career choice, they said. You'll enjoy it, they said ...

I would remove the old and install the new driver (s) (if you have not already done that). I wouldn't discard them, I would save copies, so that you could, hopefully, get back to where you are now if desired.

Is that computer being connected to your Ethernet via a switch? Is it a managed switch?

Is the switch rated for that speed? If it is a managed switch it could be limiting your speed.

What is considered "old" Cat 5? Is new Cat 5 better? The reason I am asking is that my home has Cat 5 that is 10 years old. I just did a speed test and got over 900 Mbps up and down.

Cat-5 is only rated for 100Mb. Cat-5E for 250Mb. You may be able to get away with more if it's a short run. I believe Cat-5* is rated for

Now there is Cat6 and Cat6a rated to 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps

You're fine. I meant "old Cat5" as opposed to, say, Cat 5e or Cat7

Well, technically, since 100BaseT is full-duplex, it will deliver 200 Mb/s :-)

That said, cat 5 is perfectly fine for 1000BaseT for any reasonable domestic run length (< 200ft). Cat 5e would be better.

Note that there are cheap ethernet cables that only have four wires. These will be limited to 100Mb/s since 1000BaseT requires four pairs. You can usually see this at the transparent RJ-45 connector.

Thanks, Tim! I tried a Cat 5e wire. The NIC is rated 10/100/1000 mbps. I tried different ports as well.

Thanks, Leon! The setup uses a modem and router. I don't have access to switches, as far as I know. My computer is a 6 y/o 64 bit system. Every other system in the house, including my iPhone, gets 230 mbps.

Thanks, Bill! I downloaded and installed the latest driver for the network card. The network ran about 10mpbs faster after I did.

I appreciate the help. We'll see tomorrow if a Wifi card will get the job done.

Mike

For runs less than 200 feet, cat 5 will support 1000BaseT just fine when properly terminated (punched-down). Cat 3 on the other hand....

What I've found is that many older routers (with 100BaseT ports) bundled cheap ethernet cables with only two pairs (sufficient for 100BaseT but not 1000BaseT); this will prevent autonegotiation at 1000BaseT speeds.

CAT 5e is specified for up to 100 meters by the 1000baseT standard. There is no physical difference between CAT5 and CAT5E cable--the difference is the testing that is to be performed on the installation--most installed CAT5 will pass 5E cert. If you're within a hundred miles or so of Hartford, CT let me know and I'll be happy to dust off my scanner and run a cert test for you.

Cat 6 is only needed for 10G, where CAT6 is rated for 55 meters and 6A for 100 meters.

To get the full rated speed, the computer, the router, and any switches in between all have to be rated for 1000baseT.

If one of your "fast" machines is a laptop or something else easily portable, try plugging it into the cable the "slow" machine is connected to--if that connection is slow then it's something between the machine and the router. If that connection is fast then it's something in the "slow" machine itself, probably the NIC.

This is a long shot but blow any dust out of the port on the computer and the router, and inspect them with a magnifier and a good light. A buggered up connection on gigabit will usually result in it falling back to 100 Mb/sec. Gigabit requires four pairs, 100 meg requires only two. If the autonegotiation doesn't find four good pairs then its next step should be the fastest available mode than will run on 2 and that's 100 meg.

Yes. But if you have an Ethernet line you can attach a switch, ie 4 port, and have more connections at that point. Food for thought.

LOL Yeah, I know I'm fine, I just did not know that there were different cat5 cables, but probably should have.

When I switched from 300Mbps to 1000Mbps a year or two ago I had to up grade my switch to realize the full increase in speed.

That's the great thing about standards. There are _so_ many to choose from.

I haven't used wired Internet at home for a decade, at least. My previous house was wired and I never used it. WiFi is fast enough.

Yeah! LOL

Well WiFi us good and fast enough if it reaches everywhere. And I guess fast enough to begin with. When I had 16 Mbps Wifi was not good enough in my situation to stream. When I upgraded to 300 Mbps several years ago the WiFi was fine for streaming. I up graded to 1000Mbps because ATT, in all of its wisdom, lowered my price to upgrade.

Repeaters or mesh (wish I went that way) works.

What do you do that you need 1GbE? I just did a test over my WiFi and got 300Mbps (75Mbps with my VPN). Far more than I need for anything I do. Even the 75Mb VPN tunnel is good for anything I do, including stream. 20-30Mbps is all that's needed for 4K.

If I have the tv streaming on the computer, and if others in the house are using the internet for music, video, what have you, the more the better.