How to switch to 5ghz band with ethernet computer

[southjlw1999]

So I don't have wifi on my computer so I connect to my router via ethernet. The router that I have is the asus rt-56u and there are two LEDs next to each port on the router. According to the instructions book in the router, it says that if the green LED is on, then that ethernet cable is running on 2ghz and if it is orange/yellow, the ethernet port is running on 5ghz.

When I plugged my ethernet cable into the router for the first time, I was able to connect to the internet fine, but the green light was on. I have no idea how to change the ethernet port to 5ghz. There are a lot of tutorials out there for how to change it with wifi, but I don't have wifi.

Any help would be much appreciated!

 

[greens]

You're confusing a couple things.

5ghz and 2.4ghz are radio frequencies.

Ethernet is a wired connection, which is going to be measured in bits. 10bit, 100bit, and gigabit.

You want your ethernet connection to be running at gigabit speeds, sometimes also shown as 1000 base.

 

[southjlw1999]

You're confusing a couple things.

5ghz and 2.4ghz are radio frequencies.

Ethernet is a wired connection, which is going to be measured in bits. 10bit, 100bit, and gigabit.

You want your ethernet connection to be running at gigabit speeds, sometimes also shown as 1000 base.

Oh ok, but the asus router I have says its a gigabit router, which means I should get pretty fast connection, but i'm not getting that at all. Is there something I can do about that?

 

[greens]

Router speed has nothing to do with your internet speed.

Your connection is only as fast as the slowest link, which is going to be what your ISP is providing you.

Compare your speeds against your bill, if your speeds are much lower, call your ISP and complain.

 

[southjlw1999]

Router speed has nothing to do with your internet speed.

Your connection is only as fast as the slowest link, which is going to be what your ISP is providing you.

Compare your speeds against your bill, if your speeds are much lower, call your ISP and complain.

But its weird, cause when I do a speed test on my ethernet pc and then I do a speedtest on my mac, which is connected through the wifi of the asus router, it appears that the wifi is faster than the ethernet. Shouldn't they at least be similar, if not the ethernet being faster?

 

[USAFRet]

Router speed has nothing to do with your internet speed.

Your connection is only as fast as the slowest link, which is going to be what your ISP is providing you.

Compare your speeds against your bill, if your speeds are much lower, call your ISP and complain.

But its weird, cause when I do a speed test on my ethernet pc and then I do a speedtest on my mac, which is connected through the wifi of the asus router, it appears that the wifi is faster than the ethernet. Shouldn't they at least be similar, if not the ethernet being faster?

Again, 2 different things.
The WiFi performance is talking to the router. If you look in the wrong place, ethernet will also tell you the 'wrong thing.
Overall performance is out through the ISP.

What speed do you pay the ISP for?

And please provide screenshots of whatever is telling you whatever 'speed' it appears to be.

 

[greens]

Router speed has nothing to do with your internet speed.

Your connection is only as fast as the slowest link, which is going to be what your ISP is providing you.

Compare your speeds against your bill, if your speeds are much lower, call your ISP and complain.

But its weird, cause when I do a speed test on my ethernet pc and then I do a speedtest on my mac, which is connected through the wifi of the asus router, it appears that the wifi is faster than the ethernet. Shouldn't they at least be similar, if not the ethernet being faster?

Yeah that is weird. What kind of numbers are you getting?

 

[southjlw1999]

Router speed has nothing to do with your internet speed.

Your connection is only as fast as the slowest link, which is going to be what your ISP is providing you.

Compare your speeds against your bill, if your speeds are much lower, call your ISP and complain. [/quotemsg]

But its weird, cause when I do a speed test on my ethernet pc and then I do a speedtest on my mac, which is connected through the wifi of the asus router, it appears that the wifi is faster than the ethernet. Shouldn't they at least be similar, if not the ethernet being faster?[/quotemsg]

Again, 2 different things.
The WiFi performance is talking to the router. If you look in the wrong place, ethernet will also tell you the 'wrong thing.
Overall performance is out through the ISP.

What speed do you pay the ISP for?

And please provide screenshots of whatever is telling you whatever 'speed' it appears to be.[/quotemsg]

http://

This is the speed of my ethernet. I'm not sure what speed were paying for, but ill find out in a little bit

 

[southjlw1999]

Router speed has nothing to do with your internet speed.

Your connection is only as fast as the slowest link, which is going to be what your ISP is providing you.

Compare your speeds against your bill, if your speeds are much lower, call your ISP and complain.

But its weird, cause when I do a speed test on my ethernet pc and then I do a speedtest on my mac, which is connected through the wifi of the asus router, it appears that the wifi is faster than the ethernet. Shouldn't they at least be similar, if not the ethernet being faster?

Yeah that is weird. What kind of numbers are you getting?

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/5440832594

These are the speeds for my ethernet on my pc

 

[USAFRet]

OK...12down/2up (approx)

Is that testing wired or WiFi?
What is telling you some other speed?

 

[southjlw1999]

OK...12down/2up (approx)

Is that testing wired or WiFi?
What is telling you some other speed?

That is wired. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "what is telling you some other speed"?

 

[USAFRet]

OK...12down/2up (approx)

Is that testing wired or WiFi?
What is telling you some other speed?

That is wired. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "what is telling you some other speed"?

From your earlier:
"But its weird, cause when I do a speed test on my ethernet pc and then I do a speedtest on my mac, which is connected through the wifi of the asus router, it appears that the wifi is faster than the ethernet."

 

[southjlw1999]

On my Mac (connected through wifi) it's about 15 up (sometimes higher) / 2 down (actually 2 not 1.8)

 

[USAFRet]

On my Mac (connected through wifi) it's about 15 up (sometimes higher) / 2 down (actually 2 not 1.8)

The difference between 12 and 15, and 1.8 and 2 could be completely due to testing to different locations in speedtest.
Or different time of day. Of a host of other things.

 

[southjlw1999]

Ok, but that's not really the issue. The main issue is that it should be much faster. I'll check my isp speed and get back to you to see if that's the issue.

 

[USAFRet]

Ok, but that's not really the issue. The main issue is that it should be much faster. I'll check my isp speed and get back to you to see if that's the issue.

The ISP speed is what needs to be known.

If you have a 100/20 plan, we have a major issue.
If you have a 15/2 plan, that difference could be just time of day.

 

[southjlw1999]

Alright so I checked with my isp, and based on my area, the max speed I can get is 18 mgbs. It's pretty slow so now I kind of feel like I wasted money on a router that could handle gigabit, when I could have just kept using my old router. Thanks guys for your help