Question I cant get my full download speed

[tmccullough]

All of a sudden my desktop isnt getting full download speeds. I tested it approx. 3wks ago and it was fine. I have tried wiring with two new Cat.5 cables and WIFI. I am only getting 90mbps now...it was apprx. 220mbps. I uninstalled the driver and reinstalled a new one. Not sure what even happened to make it quit working? The cable co came in and checked on multiple devices and even replaced the modem. It's only my desktop??? Any help????

I have an HP desktop, 550-a114; AMD A8-6410 APU with AMD Radeo R5 Graphics 2.00ghz
Windows 10, 64bit.

 

[Lutfij]

Did you source the drivers off the support site pertaining to your prebuilt system? Are you on the latest BIOS for your prebuilt motherboard? Just to double check, please pass on a link to where you sourced the drivers.

 

[Lutfij]

Did you source the drivers off the support site pertaining to your prebuilt system? Are you on the latest BIOS for your prebuilt motherboard? Just to double check, please pass on a link to where you sourced the drivers.

 

[kanewolf]

You said you tried "two new Cat.5" cables. Were these direct to the router or do they go to a wall plate? How long is the ehternet cable you are using? Are the cables commercially made or homemade? Are they all-copper round cables or the "flat" cables?

 

[tmccullough]

Did you source the drivers off the support site pertaining to your prebuilt system? Are you on the latest BIOS for your prebuilt motherboard? Just to double check, please pass on a link to where you sourced the drivers.

I went to the Realtek website: https://www.realtek.com/en/directly-download?downloadid=07725a3df23d8421beb419430328acc2

 

[tmccullough]

You said you tried "two new Cat.5" cables. Were these direct to the router or do they go to a wall plate? How long is the ehternet cable you are using? Are the cables commercially made or homemade? Are they all-copper round cables or the "flat" cables?

Hi, yes I plugged directly into the modem. I purchased thick blue Cat5e cables from amazon...two of them....The cable company used my same cable on their PC to test it, and the speeds were fine on their laptop.

 

[kanewolf]

Hi, yes I plugged directly into the modem. I purchased thick blue Cat5e cables from amazon...two of them....The cable company used my same cable on their PC to test it, and the speeds were fine on their laptop.

Can you provide the link to amazon? There are lots of suspect cables being sold. What length?
Have you looked at the ethernet port on your PC to see if all 8 of the pins look normal?

 

[tmccullough]

Can you provide the link to amazon? There are lots of suspect cables being sold. What length?
Have you looked at the ethernet port on your PC to see if all 8 of the pins look normal?

The Cable company used this same cord to test on their laptop and it worked. So I'm sure its not the cable....

 

[bill001g]

Your problem if it is not the cable then it has to be the port in the machine. You already tried the driver which means the hardware is damaged and the only way to "fix" it is to replace the motherboard. You could use a add in card and use that but you can't actually fix a port.

So this is why you really really want to be sure it is not the cables. Cables are really strange sometimes. They work on some machine and not others. Some machines tolerate cable that are out of specs more than others.

The reason cables are such a concern is there is a massive amount of fake cable being sold. It tends to be cheaper because they use smaller wires or aluminum to save on the cost of copper but many machines have trouble with cable that are not certified.

The only thing I have not seen in this tread is you check to be sure you have the port set to auto, setting it to 100mbps would obviously cause this issue.

 

[tmccullough]

Your problem if it is not the cable then it has to be the port in the machine. You already tried the driver which means the hardware is damaged and the only way to "fix" it is to replace the motherboard. You could use a add in card and use that but you can't actually fix a port.

So this is why you really really want to be sure it is not the cables. Cables are really strange sometimes. They work on some machine and not others. Some machines tolerate cable that are out of specs more than others.

The reason cables are such a concern is there is a massive amount of fake cable being sold. It tends to be cheaper because they use smaller wires or aluminum to save on the cost of copper but many machines have trouble with cable that are not certified.

The only thing I have not seen in this tread is you check to be sure you have the port set to auto, setting it to 100mbps would obviously cause this issue.

This was my second cable purchase: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001W26TIW/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

So, you're saying I can try to set the port to auto??? What does that mean?? I've never done that??? I was wondering if some setting got changed somehow??? ugh...I dont know how it worked then all of a sudden now it doesnt.. so frustrating...I might as well buy a new CPU. Honestly, I only use my desktop once a week for a video study online....irritating...

 

[13thmonkey]

How about some diagnostics.
right click on the network icon
internet and sharing
network properties

What is your link speed? is it 100 or 1000

As to 'buying a new CPU' if you want to, go ahead, it may or may not 'solve' your problem which you seem to be remarkably worried about given you only use it occasionally for video study which I'd expect is not being impacted by this.

 

[bill001g]

The cable should work and is likely fine. The only issue I see is that the cable is what is called stranded cable. This is nice for patch cables because it makes the cable very flexible but I forget the maximum allowed length. It is less than solid copper cables. Since ethernet can go 100 meters and you are only at 50ft I doubt you are past the limit.

Since you are using 50ft cables it is not as simple as keep trying a different brand of cable.

 

[tmccullough]

How about some diagnostics.
right click on the network icon
internet and sharing
network properties

What is your link speed? is it 100 or 1000

As to 'buying a new CPU' if you want to, go ahead, it may or may not 'solve' your problem which you seem to be remarkably worried about given you only use it occasionally for video study which I'd expect is not being impacted by this.

My link speed shows 100/100 mbps

Ironically, thats how I found this problem. During my online video study, my computer kept freezing and i couldnt share video with my viewers. After research, testing other computers, and having friends try....its my computer/internet. Once the cable company came and tested their end....it has to be my computer. When I do a speed test, its only showing 85-95mbps. Even though other computers tested and the cable company tests show they get full speeds off 220+ mbps.....so weird how it just 'changed'.....

thanks for all your help!! I'm learning alot for sure..

 

[13thmonkey]

So the question now is why is it at 100?

I'd suggest given the freezing that it's a fault condition and dropping to 100, as 20mbps would be good enough for what you need (I can stream 4k 5.1 video in a lot less than the 38 I get. )

Networking basics, every single component from the router to the network card on the PC has to be Gbit compatible for them to work, if one of them isn't it'll work at the lowest level.

Do you know how to access the settings on your router, check to see if there are options for whether the port to be 100 or 1000.

In device manager on the network adaptor > properties > advanced is there anything in there suggesting it is working at 100 and not 1000

There are no other devices at all in between you and the router? no switches, hubs or anything?

Given the plethora of cables, try them all one at a time.

 

[tmccullough]

So the question now is why is it at 100?

I'd suggest given the freezing that it's a fault condition and dropping to 100, as 20mbps would be good enough for what you need (I can stream 4k 5.1 video in a lot less than the 38 I get. )

Networking basics, every single component from the router to the network card on the PC has to be Gbit compatible for them to work, if one of them isn't it'll work at the lowest level.

Do you know how to access the settings on your router, check to see if there are options for whether the port to be 100 or 1000.

In device manager on the network adaptor > properties > advanced is there anything in there suggesting it is working at 100 and not 1000

There are no other devices at all in between you and the router? no switches, hubs or anything?

Given the plethora of cables, try them all one at a time.

I went under my ethernet status, under network connections and it says speed is 100.0 mbps. It says 70,754,425 bytes sent and 886,458,797 received.

If what you're saying is correct, why does my video keep freezing when I go live. I've done this for over a year, and all of a sudden its doing this? Maybe the port has gone bad?? This pc is a 5-6yrs old...if I had to guess.

 

[13thmonkey]

That's just saying that it's reverted to 100mbps, so what does the driver for the network port say (device manager > properties) and what does the router say? One of these could say 1000 and it still run at 100 if the other is 100.

 

[tmccullough]

So the question now is why is it at 100?

I'd suggest given the freezing that it's a fault condition and dropping to 100, as 20mbps would be good enough for what you need (I can stream 4k 5.1 video in a lot less than the 38 I get. )

Networking basics, every single component from the router to the network card on the PC has to be Gbit compatible for them to work, if one of them isn't it'll work at the lowest level.

Do you know how to access the settings on your router, check to see if there are options for whether the port to be 100 or 1000.

In device manager on the network adaptor > properties > advanced is there anything in there suggesting it is working at 100 and not 1000

There are no other devices at all in between you and the router? no switches, hubs or anything?

Given the plethora of cables, try them all one at a time.

Sorry I've been working the past few days..
I'm not sure how to check the router settings. I did like under devices and printers? but don't see it..?
I am directly wired into the modem.

So you think the the download speed isnt affecting my live video??? weird how it just started happening a few weeks ago

I did a full factory reset on my PC..that didnt help either...

 

[McKeu]

Are you using a CAT5 or CAT5e cable?
Also try switching your wi-fi bandwidth to 5GHz in the router and see if that helps improve the speed. 2.4 GHz bandwidth theoretically supports more than 100 MBit but it is more vulnerable to disturbances by phones and other stuff as a lot of every day devices communicate on the 2.4 GHz frequency.

 

[tmccullough]

Are you using a CAT5 or CAT5e cable?
Also try switching your wi-fi bandwidth to 5GHz in the router and see if that helps improve the speed.

how do I change to 5ghz? I looked under my wifi settings? hardware properties? dont see it

heres my cable info:
Mediabridge Ethernet Cable (50 Feet) - Supports Cat6 / Cat5e / Cat5 Standards, 550MHz, 10Gbps - RJ45 Computer Networking Cord (Part# 31-399-50X)

 

[McKeu]

how do I change to 5ghz? I looked under my wifi settings? hardware properties? dont see it

heres my cable info:
Mediabridge Ethernet Cable (50 Feet) - Supports Cat6 / Cat5e / Cat5 Standards, 550MHz, 10Gbps - RJ45 Computer Networking Cord (Part# 31-399-50X)

So it is a Cat 6 cable. That is very good.
The Wi-Fi bandwidth can be set in the router settings. A sticker on your router should show you how to get there (IP, login-name, password)

 

[McKeu]

What you can also try to fix your cable connection (assuming you run Win10):

RIght-Click on your lan icon in the task bar, then select open network and internet settings. Select Ethernet on the left and then Change adapter options. Right click on Ethernet from the list and choose properties. Click configure in the pop up window. Go to advanced tab and pick Speed & Duplex. Change the value from whatever it is set to (most likely auto negotiation), to the desired value (probably 1 GBit full duplex).

 

[bill001g]

The wifi setting are not related in anyway to the ethernet speeds. You could turn off the wifi radios in the router and the ethernet still functions the same.

You still have the fundamental problem of why does your ethernet port only connect at 100mbps. There are really only 3 possibilities. The port in the router is bad, the port in the pc is bad, the cable is bad.

It should not freeze your video even at 100mbps you just won't get the 200mbps you pay for. It sounds like in addition to it only running at 100mbps you are getting data errors. It would be nice if pc showed number of packets discarded on ethernet but I have only seen this feature on high end commercial switches.

It really doesn't matter because it is still the same 3 things. You can try a different port on the router. Try a different pc if you have it on the cable and see if it comes up at gigabit. I would also move the pc closer to the router just so you can use other cables without having to buy a bunch of 50ft ones and then the problem be the pc port. After that you start considering buying a add in ethernet card.

It is extremely rare for the ports in the equipment to go bad. You can many times see bent pins if they do. The most common is the cable and even though you are using a quality cable it maybe defective and the costs to buy a meter that can really test it are out of price range for home users.

 

[McKeu]

His issue happens both on wi-fi and cable, hence testing both.

 

[digitalgriffin]

There's a lot of missing needed information here:

1. How are you testing your speed? This may determine where the bottleneck is. For example if you are testing over wifi, what's your wifi link rate/signal strength. If wired, try a PC to PC large file transfer. Open up task manager and view the network rate.
2. If it's running slow, TURN OFF ANY QOS services on the router/network. QOS may ensure a particular IP does get bandwidth HOWEVER it's really only useful when you have slower bandwidth connections to the net. It slows down net traffic overall because of how it processes packets. So with a 100mbps net connection I would turn it off. That should be more than enough for 99% of people without critical dropouts. (Especially if you turn on multi media recognition for things like VoIP which has 0 penalty processing wise (usually))

 

[tmccullough]

What you can also try to fix your cable connection (assuming you run Win10):

RIght-Click on your lan icon in the task bar, then select open network and internet settings. Select Ethernet on the left and then Change adapter options. Right click on Ethernet from the list and choose properties. Click configure in the pop up window. Go to advanced tab and pick Speed & Duplex. Change the value from whatever it is set to (most likely auto negotiation), to the desired value (probably 1 GBit full duplex).

So..interestingly, I decided to break out my laptop and test it...its showing the same speeds as my PC??? so it cant be just my computer?? How did the cable company get high speeds connecting to my modem--but I'm not??? This is starting to make me mad....

 

[McKeu]

But you said your PC did at some point have the speed and it just slowed down from one day to the other, right? Or did I misunderstand something there?