Gigabit with Cat5 cable

[johnjtraynor]

Hi. I know this is an "it depends" question but I will try my best to specify

I moved in with my girlfriend. We have a 50Mbps service (not important). Her house was already wired for Ethernet using Cat5. This side of the modem she had a Cisco e2500 router and a 10/100 16 port Netgear Prosafe switch. I wanted to set up an office upstairs so I bought an Linksys WRT1900AC. Obviously with the exception of a strong wifi signal the WRT1900AC wasn't doing me much good up there, and my office was small anyway. Also I was interested in accelerating speed for moving shared files around etc. So I:

1) bought and installed a prosafe gigabit switch to replace her old 10/100 switch
2) Moved my Linksys WRT1900AC downstairs to replace her old E2500
3) Bought a TP-LINK TL-WDR3600 to put upstairs in my office wired on ethernet, set DHCP off to make it a switch and hardwired it to my computer
4) replaced the cables everywhere except inside the wall with Cat6 including between the router and the switch
5) Put a 1.5 TB drive on the USB3 port of the WRT1900AC

My computer has a Gigabit ethernet card. The Cat5 cable in the wall is probably about 50 feet.

LAN speedtest is only giving me 85-90 Mbps from my computer upstairs to the Toshiba 1.5TB USB drive in the USB3 on the WRT1900AC

Obviously I'm disappointed. I didn't expect gigabit speed but I expected better than 100Mbps.

Is this what you'd expect. Am I thinking about this wrong?

Sorry if I left out anything important. My kung fu is not strong.

 

[ajhockey3]

CAT 5 is maxed out at 100MBPS. Also the Toshiba hard drive max out at that speed too, As its not an SSD

 

[jsmithepa]

5) Put a 1.5 TB drive on the USB3 port of the WRT1900AC

THIS is one of your problem.

USB ports (even USB3) on routers are just there to sell you the router. They are not in same same league as a dedicated file server/NAS. Hook up a laptop with gigabit port directly to this router's ethernet (CAT5e or better patch cable) to actually measure what this USB3 attached HD can give you.

 

[kanewolf]

This page -- http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/32393-linksys-wrt1900ac-ac1900-dual-band-wireless-router-review?showall=&start=3 shows that, in testing 60MB/s (480Mb/s) should be possible with that router. I agree with testing with a short direct-connect device. Isolate where you are having a problem.

 

[johnjtraynor]

All. Thanks for your replies. I will try hooking my PC directly to the router with a short cat6 .... but don't all speed tests have to write to a drive? And if all of our PCs and drives are HDD doesn't the IO time affect the read? How can I get a true network speed read without HDD IO impact?

 

[bill001g]

You can use a old linemode tool called iperf it is very small, load completely in memory and puts very little overhead on the machine. It pretty much just test the network. You will need 2 machines to test in your house though.

 

[johnjtraynor]

Hi all.

I am still struggling.

First, let me correct myself. I was pleasantly surprised to find out the apartment was wired with Cat5E (according to the network guy who did the work) so my performance should be better than it is.

So I have two older PCs but both have Realtek PCIe GBE Ethernet Controllers Driver 9.001.0401.2015 which windows insists is most recent.

This side of the modem I have a Linksys wrt1900AC router which splits out to
1) an Ooma telo and
2) a Netgear prosafe gs116e 16 port switch.
3) A PC hardwired with a Realtek PCIe GBE Ethernet Controllers
4) A 1.5 TB USB3 hdd connected to the USB3 port

The Switch has about 12 cat5e cables out to a patch panel (could this be a bottleneck?) which was installed at the same time. Then connections run to the rest of the apartment.

In one bedroom is an old wrt54g router DDWRT'ed and acting as a switch. This is there to allow faster access through thick walls. Typically nothing is hard wired to the 54g. I also have a Roku3 hardwired in a den.

In an upstairs office is a TP-LINK TL-WDR3600 configured to act as a switch / wireless access point. Hard wired to it are
a) a second Ooma telo
b) a second computer with a Realtek PCIe GBE Ethernet Controllers.

I have replaced all cables that I can see with Cat 6.

I have run Lanspeedtest to the hdd on the router and gotten 85-90 Mbps

Based on answers above I installed iperf3 on both computers I . I got speeds between 87 and 96Mbps.

I tried changing the speed and duplex settings for both Ethernet controllers from autonegotiation to 1Gb Duplex. No impact.

The only thing left to try is connecting both PCs to the router and trying again... or the "disconnect all power sources including battery to regain 1Gb speed " I found elsewhere, but before I start resorting to voodoo I thought I would check back one last time. Any other suggestions?

I hate to think I wasted the money on the 1900AC and the switch... :/

TIA

John

 

[bill001g]

Try putting both your pc in the same room as your new gig switch or your router and plug both directly into the same device using your new patch cables. If you still can not exceed 100mbs I would be suspect of the machines.

If you are running though the in wall cables I would take the plates off and see if terminated all 8 wires. You only need 2 pair (4 wires) to run at 100m and all kinds of strange things used to be done when they did not plan for using 1g connections.

 

[jsmithepa]

Realtek PCIe GBE Ethernet Controllers Driver 9.001.0401.2015 which windows insists is most recent.

I don't have an explanation, but my experience shows, the best drivers are the ones provided by the Mobo's vendor. If this is a PCIe NIC, never mind.

 

[johnjtraynor]

Like a typical chair jockey it took me some time to get off my lazy butt and walk around.

So connecting PC directly to the router gets me 500-700 Mbps. Connecting to the Switch gets me 500-700 Mbps.

Walking aroud the apartment only about half of the jacks are getting me 500-700Mbps. The others including my office are getting me 80 - 90 Mbps.

Looks like I have a weekend of checking termination points. I'm hoping its points and not the cable itself!

Thanks all and Bill001g in particular.

John

 

[kanewolf]

You want to be sure to follow 568B color coding. It is quite possible that some of the wires aren't terminated correctly and your network adapter is autosensing down to 100Mb.