Ethernet Slow Download Speeds But Wireless Strong as Advertised?

[Rabid Technical]

Hello All, bit of a weird predicament I have.

Recently My ISP hooked me up with a brand new modem.
I also recently purchased a brand new Netgear Nighthawk 7000 Router.
On top of this I have a netgear A7000 Wirless adapter for my PC Desktop.

With my ISP I am on a 100 Mbps plan.
As advertised, my wireless 2.4 and 5G is speed testing at about 117Mbps.
HOWEVER, my Ethernet connection to my PC is only speed testing at 10 Mbps (well below advertised)

Why can't I get 100 Mbps through my Ethernet Connection?

Steps I tried to solve the problem.
1. Simple modem and router resets.
2. Forced speed and duplex connection at 1 Gbps, 100 Mbps and Even set it to auto negotiation. No improvements.
3. Tried 4 separate CAT 5e Cables just to be sure it wasn't a bad cable.
4. Tried shorter cable lengths (25ft - 3ft)
5. Uninstalled and reinstalled Ethernet adapter and made sure the device had the latest drivers.

Specs:
Router - Nighthawk7000
Modem - Arris TM1602
MB - MSI x99A SLIplus
Windows 10
CPU: Intel i7 - 6800K CPU @ 3.40 GHz
RAM: 32 GB 64 Bit
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1070

 

[stdragon]

Unless your modem is in bridged mode, you're double-NAT-ing with the Nighthawk 7000 router. Normally, that's not a good thing. However, it does serve as a good opportunity to do some cable testing. Have you attempted to move the Ethernet cable from the router over to the modem? What does the local area connection status report as?

 

[Rabid Technical]

Unless your modem is in bridged mode, you're double-NAT-ing with the Nighthawk 7000 router. Normally, that's not a good thing. However, it does serve as a good opportunity to do some cable testing. Have you attempted to move the Ethernet cable from the router over to the modem? What does the local area connection status report as?

Hi stdragon,

Thanks for bringing this up. I tried going direct to the modem but couldn't seem to connect to the internet at all when I did. However I didn't check my local area connection when I did this. I will give it a shot.
I'll have to look into this and see if maybe I missed a step when I went direct to the modem. Is there any way with this specific modem that I can set it to bridge mode? (I'm guessing ISP modems can't) but I thought I would ask just to be sure.

 

[stdragon]

Unless your modem is in bridged mode, you're double-NAT-ing with the Nighthawk 7000 router. Normally, that's not a good thing. However, it does serve as a good opportunity to do some cable testing. Have you attempted to move the Ethernet cable from the router over to the modem? What does the local area connection status report as?

Hi stdragon,

Thanks for bringing this up. I tried going direct to the modem but couldn't seem to connect to the internet at all when I did. However I didn't check my local area connection when I did this. I will give it a shot.
I'll have to look into this and see if maybe I missed a step when I went direct to the modem. Is there any way with this specific modem that I can set it to bridge mode? (I'm guessing ISP modems can't) but I thought I would ask just to be sure.

ISP modems can go into bridge mode. It's not a function of the modem insomuch as how the modem is configured by the ISP. Often the consumer can log into the private IP address of the modem itself and make changes with a generic administrative login/password account. But if you run into trouble, or can't find the information needed to make this change, simply call your ISP's technical support and they should be able to assist with setting it in bridge mode. Most of the time, they can remote into the modem and do this for you. They wont however configure your own router or any other piece of network equipment that's personally yours.

 

[Rabid Technical]

Unless your modem is in bridged mode, you're double-NAT-ing with the Nighthawk 7000 router. Normally, that's not a good thing. However, it does serve as a good opportunity to do some cable testing. Have you attempted to move the Ethernet cable from the router over to the modem? What does the local area connection status report as?

Hi stdragon,

Thanks for bringing this up. I tried going direct to the modem but couldn't seem to connect to the internet at all when I did. However I didn't check my local area connection when I did this. I will give it a shot.
I'll have to look into this and see if maybe I missed a step when I went direct to the modem. Is there any way with this specific modem that I can set it to bridge mode? (I'm guessing ISP modems can't) but I thought I would ask just to be sure.

ISP modems can go into bridge mode. It's not a function of the modem insomuch as how the modem is configured by the ISP. Often the consumer can log into the private IP address of the modem itself and make changes with a generic administrative login/password account. But if you run into trouble, or can't find the information needed to make this change, simply call your ISP's technical support and they should be able to assist with setting it in bridge mode. Most of the time, they can remote into the modem and do this for you. They wont however configure your own router or any other piece of network equipment that's personally yours.

Understood. I will give it a shot. I guess I didn't consider it a possible bridge mode problem since I'm not running through more than one router. I was under the impression it should be set up as follows. (how I currently have it set up) Cable from wall into modem, Ethernet cable from modem into router, from the router I have a direct Ethernet cable into my computer with all my other devices connected via wireless into the router. Does this seem like the correct setup?

Other than this, separately, I get a lot of DNS server disconnects. All devices go down and within minutes they are back and running again for a short period of time.

 

[Rabid Technical]

I thought I would come back to share my resolution to this throttling problem. It all came down to my router. Apparently the Nighthawk series of Netgear Routers divides the power between the number of ports. I have 4 ports in the back of my R7000 and despite only one port being used. It only gives me 1/4 of the bandwidth through the active port, reserving the rest for the inactive ports. I'm going to contact Netgear support and do some research to see if there is a way to circumvent this. It's ironic that with such a strong router it is programmed in this way to restrict itself.

 

[stdragon]

I thought I would come back to share my resolution to this throttling problem. It all came down to my router. Apparently the Nighthawk series of Netgear Routers divides the power between the number of ports. I have 4 ports in the back of my R7000 and despite only one port being used. It only gives me 1/4 of the bandwidth through the active port, reserving the rest for the inactive ports. I'm going to contact Netgear support and do some research to see if there is a way to circumvent this. It's ironic that with such a strong router it is programmed in this way to restrict itself.

That shouldn't be the case. The LAN ports on the back of the router are effectively an internal 4-port Ethernet switch that's bridged in with the routing function of that router. So while all 4 ports share the full gigabit bandwidth, none of the ports are "reserved". the gigabit bandwidth is available in full to any two devices (a PC and file server/NAS transferring files for example) that are actively using it. Nothing is being reserved and set aside per port.

I suspect the issue might be either the NIC in the computer, or the router itself having a hardware problem.