Question Ethernet capped at 100mbps

[ethan2828]

Hi, I recently upgraded my BT broadband from 150mbps to 500mbps download, with an upgrade of 30mbps to 75mbps upload.

The upload speed has been great thus far, and there has been no problems. Although, with the download speed, I am seeing the same numbers as I saw before.

I checked my settings in the Network and Sharing Center, and see that the Ethernet connection shows a Link Speed of 100mbps. I have tried multiple 'solutions' on trying to fix this, with no success.

For example, I have:

• Changed the Duplex from 'Auto negotation' to '1gbps'
• Restarted PC multiple times
• Bought a brand new CAT 7 cable
• Updated LAN driver
• Updated BIOS driver
• Changed other settings within the Ethernet adapter properties (Realtek Gaming GbE Family Controller), including ensuring that the auto-disable gigabit was disabled, etc.

My motherboard is a Gigabyte B365M-DS3H, and apparently it supports up to 1gbps. It may also be worth noting that the ethernet cable from my PC leads directly into a netgear wifi extender (EX3700), which also supports up to 750mbps.

Please let me know if anyone has any suggestions.

Many thanks!

 

[Lutfij]

Check and see if your Netgear device has any firmware updates pending. For the sake of relevance, can you state what your BIOS version is for your motherboard? Also, what OS are yo working with?

 

[bill001g]

So you are believing marketing lies.

First and most important that device only has a 100mbps internet port if you posted the correct part number. Pretty much show the manufacture know really well that it can never get even 100mbps.

Next it is the standard set of wifi lies that all manufacture it is running 300 on 2.4 and 433 on 5 BUT no end device can use both radios at the same time
Next it it half duplex only 1 device can transmit at a time so you lose about 1/2
These number are magic lab numbers that nobody can really get.
In addition to all this you are running a repeater which damages the signals you likely lose another 1/2 of the speed if not more.
You might if you were very lucky and ran this close to the main router get 100mbps but I suspect it will always be much lower.

I would test plugged into the main router with a ethernet cable just to be very sure the ISP is delivering the service you pay for.

There is no magic here you are running a wifi connection. What you have basically done is make your ethernet port into a wifi adapter similar to if you used a USB adapater except the nic would not have the repeater function which degrades the speed.

You can get more speed via wifi with better equipment maybe you get 300mbps but this assume you are getting a strong signal directly from the router which is unlikely if you purchased a repeater.

What I would recommend is if you have a coax connection near the router and in your room use MoCA. These devices can actually get 1gbit.

You might consider powerline but even with the best units it is unlikely you will even get 200mbps....be careful many cheap ones also come with 10/100 ports because they know they can't get their 500 magic number.


Note the cat7 cable you purchased is likely a fake. Many people buy those flat cables. If this still runs at 100 plugged into the main router then I would buy a new cable. Sometime these fake cable can run at 1gbit at short distance but it is pure luck which ones can and which can not.

 

[ethan2828]

Check and see if your Netgear device has any firmware updates pending. For the sake of relevance, can you state what your BIOS version is for your motherboard? Also, what OS are yo working with?

Hi, apologies for not stating this previously. I am using Windows 11 with Bios Version F7 (the latest) on B365M-DS3H.

I hope this helps.

 

[ethan2828]

So you are believing marketing lies.

First and most important that device only has a 100mbps internet port if you posted the correct part number. Pretty much show the manufacture know really well that it can never get even 100mbps.

Next it is the standard set of wifi lies that all manufacture it is running 300 on 2.4 and 433 on 5 BUT no end device can use both radios at the same time
Next it it half duplex only 1 device can transmit at a time so you lose about 1/2
These number are magic lab numbers that nobody can really get.
In addition to all this you are running a repeater which damages the signals you likely lose another 1/2 of the speed if not more.
You might if you were very lucky and ran this close to the main router get 100mbps but I suspect it will always be much lower.

I would test plugged into the main router with a ethernet cable just to be very sure the ISP is delivering the service you pay for.

There is no magic here you are running a wifi connection. What you have basically done is make your ethernet port into a wifi adapter similar to if you used a USB adapater except the nic would not have the repeater function which degrades the speed.

You can get more speed via wifi with better equipment maybe you get 300mbps but this assume you are getting a strong signal directly from the router which is unlikely if you purchased a repeater.

What I would recommend is if you have a coax connection near the router and in your room use MoCA. These devices can actually get 1gbit.

You might consider powerline but even with the best units it is unlikely you will even get 200mbps....be careful many cheap ones also come with 10/100 ports because they know they can't get their 500 magic number.


Note the cat7 cable you purchased is likely a fake. Many people buy those flat cables. If this still runs at 100 plugged into the main router then I would buy a new cable. Sometime these fake cable can run at 1gbit at short distance but it is pure luck which ones can and which can not.

Hi Bill,
Thanks for the reply.. hopefully I've understood this correctly:

I forgot to mention previously that my connection to the router on my phone, Mac, and other devices works perfectly. I get 400+mbps download speed on those devices. The ISP is not the problem here, from my point of view.

It's just my PC that is the problem. Unfortunately I won't be able to test the connection with my PC to the router itself, as we have no cable directly going from the router to the 3rd story of our house (where the PC is located).

By the way, I've tried powerline, with no success (and actually worse speeds than Wi-Fi/the current setup).

The Netgear Wi-Fi extender also can reach speeds up to 400mbps on the current connection (over Wi-Fi).

If you have any further ideas, please let me know.

 

[bill001g]

I am extremely surprised you would get transfer speeds that fast. Even directly next to the main router very few people get those speeds even with the best wifi5 routers. In addition if you connect to the repeater you have all the overhead of the data being send and received 2 times. Are you looking at the connect speed or did you actually see those on speedtest. The connection speed is purely a number that represents the data encoding it does not factor in any overhead or repeaters in the path.

So if you look an page 47 of this you will see.
https://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/EX3700/EX3700_UM_EN.pdf
Interface • Local: 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, RJ-45

But if you look in the techspecs page for the device you find this.
Ports : One (1) 10/100 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet port with auto-sensing technology

I then went 1 step farther and looked up the cpu chip that device uses. If you then look the specs up in a database site like this one you see it has 5 FE ports. FE is another name for fast ethernet which is limited to 100mbps. They only use 1 of the ethernet ports on the device even though when the same chip is used in a router there are 5 all can only run 10/100.

https://wikidevi.wi-cat.ru/MediaTek_MT7620A

I strongly suspect the second one is a misprint. Normally ports speeds that run gigabit are written 10/100/1000. But it makes things more confusing at this point.

But lets look at a more common example. A router that has a wan port that can run gigabit but only has lan ports that can run 100mbps. Now the traffic might come into the router at gigabit speeds but it can't be send out of the router to your pc faster than 100mbps even if it can send it to say a wifi device faster. The fastest you can go is slowest link in the path. Sorta of like exiting a big multi lane highway onto a smaller road. Normally it is the other way around, the gigabit ethernet is highway and the wifi is small road.

Now IF the port is really a gigabit port which I doubt then your problem is most like the cable. Most cat7 cable people buy are fakes. First the cat7 cert was never fully recognized and the newer CAT6a which is certified is what everyone uses for 10gbit cable. The cat7 really buys you nothing in most cases. It is strange that multiple cables would only run at 100mbps but people buy those flat cables because they are cheaper and all of those have wires too small to meet the official definition of a ethernet cable.

If you want to try to buy a quality cat5e cable you can. You need a pure copper cable (no cca) with wire size 22-24 (no flat or thin cables). You can buy cat6 or whatever if it is cheaper but it will not run any faster than cat5e.

BUT I am pretty sure since the database site show that cpu for your device and every other device that uses it only has 10/100 ports the port is 10/100 and the main cause of your issues.


Note it also depends on what you are using this for. If your goal is to play online games you get much more consistent latency on powerline even if it is slower. wifi is the worst choice for playing online games because of how they handles damaged data.
Games need almost no bandwidth, most times in the 300-500kbits/sec. Now it would take a longer time to download a 20gbyte game but I would run temporarily run a long ethernet cable to the main router to get the full 500mbps.