[SOLVED] How do I get my gigabit ethernet to run @ full speed?

[iTRiP]

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Unknown ethernet cable.

 

[Lutfij]

What is the package/plan that you're paying your ISP?

 

[Inthrutheoutdoor]

Assuming that your pc is working correctly with up to date drivers, firmware & bios, the 1st question is: why are you using an "unknown" ethernet cable ? Ewww, bad idea !

2nd question is: where does the problem really come from... is it your hardware or the ISP's modem/software, or is it your ISP's level/speed of service......

FYI, in almost every case, even if you have 1Gb service + a 1Gb-capable modem & router + a 1GB NIC, RARELY will you ever get a full 1Gb on your machine... it's just a fact of life due to overhead and other physical limitations...

 

[iTRiP]

Assuming that your pc is working correctly with up to date drivers, firmware & bios, the 1st question is: why are you using an "unknown" ethernet cable ? Ewww, bad idea !

2nd question is: where does the problem really come from... is it your hardware or the ISP's modem/software, or is it your ISP's level/speed of service......

FYI, in almost every case, even if you have 1Gb service + a 1Gb-capable modem & router + a 1GB NIC, RARELY will you ever get a full 1Gb on your machine... it's just a fact of life due to overhead and other physical limitations...

So you're implying that the cable I'm using might be why it is connecting @ 100Mbps instead of the hardware capable 1000Mbps.

According to me everything : drivers, firmware, bios and OS is in order to make this possible save the unknown cable randomly used just to make the connection at least functioning.

What kind of cable do I need to replace the unknown cable with to test if this is the issue?

And can somebody confirm that say I get the right cable my hardware can make 1000Mbps? To my understanding the hardware should suffice.

 

[iTRiP]

What is the package/plan that you're paying your ISP?

That is not my query, I'm trying to make the connection between my pc and router 1000Mbps, the isp speed has no hold here.

 

[bill001g]

Where do you see that message. That exact term is not something I have seen before.

You should see the speed it is connected at in one of the status screens for the network, microsoft has changed this between releases so you have to look around. Your router also might tell you the speed the lan port is connected at, sometime you can tell by the lights also.

 

[Viking2121]

A bad cable or old cable can limit your speed to 10/100mbps so @Inthrutheoutdoor is correct, I have some cables here that say cat 5e and won't connect at a gigabit for some reason or is vary flaky in how it connects, most likely cheap and worn out.

I got an easy 200 different Ethernet cables and I can't really give you a name brand, I use whatever I have on hand that's not really stiff, but you need at least a cat 5 cable to get gigabit.

Good Luck

 

[rcfant89]

So your question is: why is your pc connecting to your router at 100 mbps rather than 1 gbps? Is it directly connected? If yes, it's probably a poor quality cable. Buy a good cable for a few bucks. If it's going through something, like a switch, or other jacks, it's probably that. Upgrade the cable first and come back to us. If you go to adapter settings and hit status, it should say 1 gbps (assuming your NIC and router both are gigabit ports).

 

[Inthrutheoutdoor]

So you're implying that the cable I'm using might be why it is connecting @ 100Mbps instead of the hardware capable 1000Mbps.

According to me everything : drivers, firmware, bios and OS is in order to make this possible save the unknown cable randomly used just to make the connection at least functioning.

What kind of cable do I need to replace the unknown cable with to test if this is the issue?

And can somebody confirm that say I get the right cable my hardware can make 1000Mbps? To my understanding the hardware should suffice.

Yes that is exactly what I am implying... you could have the fastest hardware on the planet (modem, router, NIC etc) rated at 100,000Mbps and even then, a crappy, worn or disfunctional cable could/would still limit your speeds at any given time.

Also please state how far your computer is from the router....and how many other devices are connected to your router, and if the cable has to go thru any walls/floor etc on it's way from the router to your computer.....

Please go get a NEW cable (Cat5e min, or even better a Cat6 ), see what happens then post back with the results...

 

[iTRiP]

Yes that is exactly what I am implying... you could have the fastest hardware on the planet (modem, router, NIC etc) rated at 100,000Mbps and even then, a crappy, worn or disfunctional cable could/would still limit your speeds at any given time.

Also please state how far your computer is from the router....and how many other devices are connected to your router, and if the cable has to go thru any walls/floor etc on it's way from the router to your computer.....

Please go get a NEW cable (Cat5e min, or even better a Cat6 ), see what happens then post back with the results...

Right so CAT5e min, seems here I can get a CAT8 cable, it only needs to be 1m so not going through any walls and floors or such, strait from the wifi router to my pc via LAN port, Lan port is 1000Mbps and motherbaord is 1000Mbps, and a CAT8 ethernet cable can do 40Gbps.

I hope this is what I need to do to make a 1Gb/s connection work, now to get that cable and see if this would suffice.

Thanks all for your input on this , I'll let know if I make progress.

 

[bill001g]

You are wasting your money buying anything better than cat5e unless cat6 happens to be cheaper.

The port not the cable controls the speed. Even if you use a cat8 cable the signals still are only being put into the cable at 1gbit. It does not give you anything other than costing much more money.

Most the so called cat8 cable is fake, unless you are paying about 10times the cost of cat5e. Most the cable you see called cat8 is this crappy flat stuff that does not meet any standards. The key thing is the words "CATx" is not the actual standard so I could take a wire coat hanger and tell you it was cat8. The standards are things like TIA/EIA and a couple other that together define a ethernet cable.

Key here is the wire must be pure copper wire (no CCA) and have wire size 22-24 (no flat or thin cables). Real cat8 cable take a lot more advanced manufacturing process and it uses the same amount of copper metal which it the big costs.
Even cat6a which is what is used for 10gbit now costs about the same as cat6 or cat5e. Not because the price of cat6a has dropped but the price of cat5e and cat6 has increased so much because of the price of the copper metal that the difference in the manufacture costs is now only a small percentage. In any case do not buy cat8 cables either buy cat5e or cat6a. You can consider cat6 cable if it happens to be cheaper but it will still all run at 1gbit.

 

[Inthrutheoutdoor]

Yep anything beyond Cat 6a is a pure waste of money, even for the next few years, so don't bother with it....

As for copper prices, it has gone WAY, WAY, WAY up, as in stratospheric lately....

Last year I bought several 100ft rolls of 12-2 indoor electrical wire for like $55.... and just this afternoon I was at s'Lowes and noticed that those same rolls were $178...... that's just friggin outrageous

 

[rcfant89]

Yep anything beyond Cat 6a is a pure waste of money, even for the next few years, so don't bother with it....

As for copper prices, it has gone WAY, WAY, WAY up, as in stratospheric lately....

Last year I bought several 100ft rolls of 12-2 indoor electrical wire for like $55.... and just this afternoon I was at s'Lowes and noticed that those same rolls were $178...... that's just friggin outrageous

Ah that just sounds like you're getting ripped off by lowes to me. I'm an IT contractor and I usually buy this: https://www.truecable.com/products/cat6-riser-ethernet-cable-unshielded

1000 feet of solid copper Cat6 for $169.99. It's up a little, I used to pay around 150 but that's not so bad. Not nearly the price jump that you're seeing (I know you're talking about a different product but still). I was also looking at 10 foot copper pipes (redoing my plumbing) and they are, I think, around 1.35/foot if you buy 10. Idk, I'm not a plumber but that seems somewhat reasonable to me. Haven't priced electrical wiring in a minute though...

As for op, I'd say anything over Cat6 is overkill, I wouldn't even do Cat6a. What for? Cat 6 can already do 10 gigabit over a hundred feet+, which is already 10x overkill from his gigabit NICs. And even gigabit is probably overkill since I'm sure he isn't saturating that either. Probably only a couple hundred Mbps on the link at most. People love to go nuts and go overkill then overkill again, then again, and it just sits there unutilized. Cat5e has been out for over 20 years and is still overkill for most people. Your cameras are probably pushing 20-40 Mbps, smartTV is probably a 100 Mbps NIC, PC and router NICs are capped at gig, printer/alexa/smart devices/etc are all gig. There's no point in getting a better cable because the cable isn't the bottleneck. Until you drop the AIO router for a 10 gig enterprise class router, put a 10 gig NIC in your PC, put a 10 gig NAS, you're getting zero benefit.

I have basically exclusively run cat5e and cat6 for the past decade, and will for the foreseeable future. If it's something crazy mission critical, expensive trenching or whatever, 6a or fiber, ok, but 99.999999% of the time cat6 is already overkill. Cat7 is just a marketing scheme. Later on when you want 25 and 40 gigabit, cat8 but that's not for another decade or two. Especially some guy with a all in one home router

 

[iTRiP]

Have a look at this link where I can source a cable that seems suitable, (I read what you all are saying not to go overkill) but it's not expensive at all, since I only need 1m.

And I just want the gigabit connection to work, Alas they say the better CAT cable you use, the longer they last, Don't know if that's true or not, will have to see about that.

Oh and another thing is my orders from this retailer need to not cheap out, they need to be high enough purchase price to warrant the included delivery cost, and obviously to cover returns.

Tell me what you think of this cable, if you can view the link.

UGreen CAT8 40Gbps Ethernet 1m Round Lan Cable-Black | Buy Online in South Africa | takealot.com

I see under the LAN NIC setting in device manager with my current unknown cable plugged in I can set the speed to 1000Mbps instead of 100Mbps, but when I do this the connection drops, this is what lead me to believe that the cable is at fault, I suppose that if I had the fastest capable cable then maybe, possibly the connection would automatically connect at the fastest speed the ports are.

I suppose one doesn't have too manually set speed if all hardware is compliant with the objective of reaching gigabit.

 

[bill001g]

Cables don't wear out....it is basically a piece of metal. Now if you plug and unplug them constantly you can I guess damage them over time. Cat8 likely will actually take more damage because it is less flexible.

The main difference in the rating on cables is how the pairs are twisted and in some cases how separators are used. All it does is allow the cable to run at faster clock speeds. It only matters if you hook it to a port that can actually run faster, if you use 1gbit ports it doesn't matter.
You could put racing tires on you economy car and it still will not run any faster that its engine will allow.

Who knows if that cable is good. It does not appear to have any markings on the outside. Legit cable tend to have things like TIA/EIA numbers because they paid to have their manufacturing methods certified. That by itself though means little you have lots of cable coming out of china with fake markings....even when they are not using pure copper wire which automatically disqualifies the cable.

Generally legit cable will tell you what the wire is made from and the size of the wires. To be a valid cable it must use pure copper wires with size 22-24. Anything else is not a ethernet cable. Most manufactures know about all the fake cable being sold and make it a point to show that their cable is valid by putting this information in the advertising. When you don't see it you have to be very suspect it is fake cable.

 

[iTRiP]

Wow, now I didn't expect this to actually make the speed difference, since when I uninstalled the unknown cable, it's a much thinner cable but alas also 24AWG, well anyways it turned out positive and I made my objective of having my connection run @ 1Gbps with the above-mentioned cable plugged in, the new LAN cable, it's a thick sucker, nearly doesn't bend at all, but luckily, I measured the length correctly.

All well ends well, 1Gbps LAN, pc to router achieved!