Question I have 10Gbps internet, but my computer is only getting 2.1Gbps ?

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HBOW

HBOW

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Mar 1, 2021
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I have purchased 10Gbps internet speed, which have been verified by me and an ISP technician at my house. The first question I usually get is if I actually purchased or have the speeds, so please bear with me as it's in the details below... but yes I do have these available speeds.

As such, I purchased and installed TP-Link TX401 (Hardware Version: V1.6; Update Firmware: 3.1.8) onto my motherboard's PCIx16_3 slot, which is technically my motherboard's 4th PCI slot.

My PC setup is as follows:
-Case: TT H700
-Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero (onboard LAN only handles 2.5Gbps)
-RAM: TT Toughram 4000mhz (set to 3800; 1900 FLCK)
-CPU: Ryzen 9 5950x
-AIO for CPU: TT Toughliquid 360
-GPU: Sapphire Nitro 7900 XTX
-Boot drive: WD NVMe installed on the M.2_1 port of motherboard
-PSU: TT Toughpower RGB P1 850W
-OS: Windows 11
-All drivers are up to date

Network Setup:
-10Gbps connected from wall via CAT8 to TP-Link AXE300 to PC using Asus Crosshair VIII Hero Gaming X570 Plus motherboard
-Cable - using the one provided in the TX401 box, but also tried others (cat8 and cat6)
-No VPN

Adjustments attempted to correct speed issue:
-Turned Norton AV off to test speed
-Adjusted Advanced network card settings to the following:
-Energy-Efficient Ethernet - DISABLED
-Flow Control - Rx & Tx Enabled
-Large Send Offload V1 & V2 (IPv4) - DISABLED
-Large Send Offload V2 (IPv6) - DISABLED
-Link Speed - 10G
-Speed & Duplex - 10GBPS FULL DUPLEX
- TCP/UDP Checksum Offload (IPv4) - DISABLED

During the ISP Technician visit:
-tested connection from wall to technician's external network card with thunderbolt adapter getting 8-9 gbps upload and download.
-tested connection via my TP-Link AXE300 Router to his own thunderbolt adapter getting 8gbps down and 8 gbps down
-tested on my pc - direct to wall - 2.1gbps down and 2.1gbps up
-tested on my pc - via router - 2.1gpbs down and 2.1gbps up
-tested ISP technician's ethernet cable on my PC direct to wall and also through router
-during low-traffic time during the day I might get 2.1gbps down and 4.8gbps upload speeds
-the only thing we didn't test is the ISP technician's thunderbolt external network card onto my PC

TP-Link Support simply recommended trying another 10gbps card to see if that's the issue. For now, I've ordered the Asus 10gpbs network card which I should be able to pick up tomorrow.

I am merely a PC enthusiast who has built his own computers over the years. But this bleeds into the network side and the nuanced balance between the two. I am respectfully pleading for any help, as it would be much appreciated. Any time I get help on very nuanced issues, I only share the information on other forums and my social circles. So you'd not only be helping me, but anyone I divulge the information to as well.

I just got stationed in Japan, so the ONLY ISP is Allied Telesis. But I love helping my younger troops with PC stuff, so if you can help my navigate through this - you'd be helping a community of gamers on this side of the globe.

Thank you in advance!

IMPORTANT Update edit:
I got into my router's settings via my PC, opposed to the Router's app on my phone.

TP-Link AXE300 has a Quality of Service (QoS) option, where you can select which device that is currently connected can be given permissions for speed priority. Which I previously had set my PC to having a priority lane.

The default was 2400mbps download and upload speeds. I previously set this to 10000mbps down and up from the phone app. When I looked onto the settings via PC, it was once again at the default 2400... so I set it back up once again to 10000mbps.

The update is that once I went to test my speed on Ookla website again - where it connects to the local city of Fussa, it starts at about 6000mbps download, then it tanks down to about 1400 until the website crashes. It does this every single time. However, when I download the Ookla speed test app - it reads as I would expect it to read with roughly 8.8Gbps down and up. You'd think I'd be thrilled as though I've solved the mystery.

This brings a new question: what's accurate/is this a false reading? The Ookla app goes directly to the ISP ping stations from Allied Telesis Capital Corporation in Sagamihara OR Fussa. The Ookla website tested Fussa just fine before I adjusted the QoS settings, but once I altered the QoS settings it would crash.

A second question for the network card aspect.: Why could this allow me to adjust the speed my PC receives to show just fine when connected through the router, but when I go directly to the wall I'm still throttled back down to 2.1gpbs down and up?

@Ralston18 what information on ipconfig/all do you need specifically? I suppose now the important questions have been formulated after finding what I thought would be the overall solution.
 
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-10Gbps connected from wall via CAT8 to TP-Link AXE300 to PC using Asus Crosshair VIII Hero Gaming X570 Plus motherboard

CAT-8 cable: Non-spec as I understand such things and likely fake cable.

On your computer run "ipconfig /all" (without quotes) via the Command Prompt.

Copy and paste the full results into your next post.
 
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HBOW said:
My PC setup is as follows:
-Case: TT H700
-Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero (onboard LAN only handles 2.5Gbps)
Click to expand...
Of course, is absolutly normal, 2.1 out of 2.5 i say it is more then ok, you want full 10 gbps, buy a 10 gbps network card and add it in the pc, connect your router to it and voila, full 10 gbps (well you never achieve max theoretical, between 8 and 9 realisticaly speaking). Your current onboard network is only 2.5 gbps so you will never achieve more then that. How i said, want full 10 gbps on your pc, buy a 10 gbps network card and put it in a pcie capable of more then 10 gbps. You also have the option to buy a usb rj45 network card but you need a 10gbps USB port and the card must be capable of 10 gbps.

EDIT: I see your motherboard has 2 PCIE slots which supports full 10gbps NIC. I mean has 2 PCIE slots conected to chipset not cpu, you dont want to use the second slot conected to the cpu, you will cripple a bit your gpu, it will go in x8 mode instead of x16.
 
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The optimum cable to use a cat6a. Most real cat8 cables are only sold from equipment resellers that also sell equipment that can do 40g or 100gbit. The vast majority of so called cat8 cables that a general consumer can buy are fakes. Then again at very short distance pretty much any cable can do 10g.

I will point out the obvious but you do have the cable plugged into the tplink board and not your motherboard.

Is there a way you can see how many pcie lanes the nic card is getting and what the type of pcie it has. This is unlikely the issue even older pcie3 with just a x1 lane can get about 8gbit.

Where are you testing to. Where these the same sites you tested to when the ISP was there. Could be the server on the internet that is limit. Does your router itself have the ability to do a speedtest.

The problem with fast internet, even 1gbit, the server companies don't like you. They place artificial limits on the downloads to prevent a small number of users from using all their bandwidth.
The best site I have found to test real downloads is microsoft. They have huge bandwidth and do not seem to limit it but I have never tried a 10gbit connection.
 
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bill001g said:
The optimum cable to use a cat6a. Most real cat8 cables are only sold from equipment resellers that also sell equipment that can do 40g or 100gbit. The vast majority of so called cat8 cables that a general consumer can buy are fakes. Then again at very short distance pretty much any cable can do 10g.

I will point out the obvious but you do have the cable plugged into the tplink board and not your motherboard.

Is there a way you can see how many pcie lanes the nic card is getting and what the type of pcie it has. This is unlikely the issue even older pcie3 with just a x1 lane can get about 8gbit.

Where are you testing to. Where these the same sites you tested to when the ISP was there. Could be the server on the internet that is limit. Does your router itself have the ability to do a speedtest.

The problem with fast internet, even 1gbit, the server companies don't like you. They place artificial limits on the downloads to prevent a small number of users from using all their bandwidth.
The best site I have found to test real downloads is microsoft. They have huge bandwidth and do not seem to limit it but I have never tried a 10gbit connection.
Click to expand...
All his PCIes are 4.0, the card gets plenty of bandwidth, i just saw now he bought one. One way to check the databandwidth si to go to network settinsgs and check the speed conected, it must show 1gbps, 10gbps or 100 mbps
 
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Dragos Manea said:
Of course, is absolutly normal, 2.1 out of 2.5 i say it is more then ok, you want full 10 gbps, buy a 10 gbps network card and add it in the pc, connect your router to it and voila, full 10 gbps (well you never achieve max theoretical, between 8 and 9 realisticaly speaking). Your current onboard network is only 2.5 gbps so you will never achieve more then that. How i said, want full 10 gbps on your pc, buy a 10 gbps network card and put it in a pcie capable of more then 10 gbps. You also have the option to buy a usb rj45 network card but you need a 10gbps USB port and the card must be capable of 10 gbps.

EDIT: I see your motherboard has 2 PCIE slots which supports full 10gbps NIC. I mean has 2 PCIE slots conected to chipset not cpu, you dont want to use the second slot conected to the cpu, you will cripple a bit your gpu, it will go in 8x mode instead of 16x.
Click to expand...
As stated at the beginning of my post, I have a 10gbps card. Also, my Mobo has 4 PCI slots. ROG Crosshair VIII Hero.
 
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lantis3 said:
What link speed does it show for your X401?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7leqD_06D8

Also reset your network, do not try to change parameters

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUbnwz89d10
Click to expand...
Thank you for the instructional videos, it's hard to know anyone's level of experience when they're asking for help.

After I reset all of my settings and restarted the PC, it's showing:
IPv4 Connectivity: Internet
IPv6 Connectivity: No network access
Media state: Enabled
Duration: [whichever time I've turned it off and on as]
Speed: 10.0 Gbps
 
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bill001g said:
The optimum cable to use a cat6a. Most real cat8 cables are only sold from equipment resellers that also sell equipment that can do 40g or 100gbit. The vast majority of so called cat8 cables that a general consumer can buy are fakes. Then again at very short distance pretty much any cable can do 10g.

I will point out the obvious but you do have the cable plugged into the tplink board and not your motherboard.

Is there a way you can see how many pcie lanes the nic card is getting and what the type of pcie it has. This is unlikely the issue even older pcie3 with just a x1 lane can get about 8gbit.

Where are you testing to. Where these the same sites you tested to when the ISP was there. Could be the server on the internet that is limit. Does your router itself have the ability to do a speedtest.

The problem with fast internet, even 1gbit, the server companies don't like you. They place artificial limits on the downloads to prevent a small number of users from using all their bandwidth.
The best site I have found to test real downloads is microsoft. They have huge bandwidth and do not seem to limit it but I have never tried a 10gbit connection.
Click to expand...
lantis3 said:
What link speed does it show for your X401?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7leqD_06D8

Also reset your network, do not try to change parameters

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUbnwz89d10
Click to expand...
I would also like to clarify that when I go into Settings > Network & internet > Advanced network settings, and click the dropdown on the applicable network adapter, I'm only getting 1410 (Mbps). But when you got to View additional properties, it shows what I mentioned before. Link SPeed (receive/transmit) 10/10Gbps. Also, the light on my network card has 2 indicators. One for normal "LAN" and another "10 Gbps LAN" - which the 10 gbps is lit.
 
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bill001g said:
The optimum cable to use a cat6a. Most real cat8 cables are only sold from equipment resellers that also sell equipment that can do 40g or 100gbit. The vast majority of so called cat8 cables that a general consumer can buy are fakes. Then again at very short distance pretty much any cable can do 10g.

I will point out the obvious but you do have the cable plugged into the tplink board and not your motherboard.

Is there a way you can see how many pcie lanes the nic card is getting and what the type of pcie it has. This is unlikely the issue even older pcie3 with just a x1 lane can get about 8gbit.

Where are you testing to. Where these the same sites you tested to when the ISP was there. Could be the server on the internet that is limit. Does your router itself have the ability to do a speedtest.

The problem with fast internet, even 1gbit, the server companies don't like you. They place artificial limits on the downloads to prevent a small number of users from using all their bandwidth.
The best site I have found to test real downloads is microsoft. They have huge bandwidth and do not seem to limit it but I have never tried a 10gbit connection.
Click to expand...
I appreciate your reply so I will separate my answers as well:

Ethernet cables and where the cable was plugged into:
Both the ISP technician and I tested with cat6a cables, both mine and his. We tested direct to wall, then through the router. On these tests, he was able to indicate the appropriate speeds, whereas I had the throttled speeds regardless of cable used, regardless as to whether or not I was connected to the wall, router, from the TPlink TX401 network card or my motherboard (which is limited to 2.5 gpbs).

PCI lanes:
I have 4 4.0 PCI lanes. ROG Crosshair VIII Hero x570 is top of the line for that generation. Here is a link to the manual: https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/...ERO/E15379_ROG_CROSSHAIR_VIII_HERO_UM_WEB.pdf

Where I was testing to:
Both the ISP technician and I got the best testing speeds from Ookla, which tests out of the local city (Fussa). Testmy.net, which pings off of central Tokyo is worse, where I only get 1.3 down and 400mbps up. Lastly, someone else here mentioned the Microsoft app for network speed test, which only shows 1gpbs down and 47mbps up - with no option as to where to ping from.

can i test from router:
I havent found that option. But i just messed with my router's option for Quality of Service. It was autoset to 2400 mbps down and upload. I then downloaded the ookla speed test app instead of using the website, and now it's reflecting what I set the QoS limitation to. What I still dont understand is that I still cant get this speed directly to the wall.
 
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HBOW said:
Where I was testing to:
Both the ISP technician and I got the best testing speeds from Ookla, which tests out of the local city (Fussa). Testmy.net, which pings off of central Tokyo is worse, where I only get 1.3 down and 400mbps up. Lastly, someone else here mentioned the Microsoft app for network speed test, which only shows 1gpbs down and 47mbps up - with no option as to where to ping from.
Click to expand...
This just shows how little benefit you get from high bandwidth ISP connections. Bandwidth above 1GE is generally unusable.
 
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lantis3 said:
See if you can find some huge file download test

https://www.google.com/search?q=huge+file+download+speed+test
Click to expand...
Because you've been helpful I felt obligated for a closed loop follow up. Also, in case someone else comes to this conclusion when trying to Google solutions.

I received my Asus XG-C100 Network card to test the theory from other forums as to whether it was a bad network card. I can say so far that for some reason, the TP-Link TX401 would some times drop my internet connection during a single-player gaming session, whereas the Asus card did not. I have not delved into that issue because at this point I've gone as far as I needed to for my own edification, I've just left my Asus card installed. My router does not possess the option to rest internet going into it, but based on the tests I've been running from my network cards through the router, I can confidently say that I'm getting the speeds I generally expect.

File download tests:
The large file downloads varied greatly depending on server locations. Given my current location and hardware, typing "huge file download speed test" in Google, the following are what I have found with download website and respective times:
https://github.com/szalony9szymek/large 1.9gb = 2 minutes
https://test2.fibertelecom.it/ 5gb file = 6 minutes
https://testfile.org/ 5gb file = 1.5 minutes

Speed tests:
Additionally, here are the results of speed tests (approximates) pinged to various Tokyo-area locations around 1500-1530 UCT+9 Tokyo time, download and upload respectively:
800Mbps/900Mbps
https://fast.com/: 5.6Gbps/1.5Gbps
https://fiber.google.com/speedtest/: 3.8Gbps/5.4Gbps
https://testmy.net/results (Multithread ON) 1.2Gbps/500Mbps
Ookla speedtest website still crashes on me, but the PC app maintains the 8Gbps down/up.

After further research, I've found there's a list of factors when it comes to speeds. Local ISP ping tests are perfect world scenarios, which is why they tend to show you the best speed results. The primary factors within our control will always be what everyone here mentioned, but the only one they didn't mention is the QoS option in the router settings. This can mean that other routers may also posses the ability to limit and prioritize speeds to specific devices.

IF anyone care to monitor their stuff down to the specifics, they can look into Network protocol tools such as PingPlotter and Wireshark.

​

Thank you again!
 
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I will make a point of one addition thing in your summary. You never want to use any QoS option or for that matter any fancy option on your router when you have a fast internet. Even 1gbit can be too much.

Modern routers have moved the NAT function to dedicated asic function in the cpu die. This means the traffic basically bypasses the cpu. When you use QoS or many other feature the software running on the CPU must see every packet. This also means the CPU must many times also do the NAT in software rather than using the hardware assist. It is not uncommon for a router to drop to just 300mbps just turning on QoS or some firewall features.
 
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bill001g said:
I will make a point of one addition thing in your summary. You never want to use any QoS option or for that matter any fancy option on your router when you have a fast internet. Even 1gbit can be too much.

Modern routers have moved the NAT function to dedicated asic function in the cpu die. This means the traffic basically bypasses the cpu. When you use QoS or many other feature the software running on the CPU must see every packet. This also means the CPU must many times also do the NAT in software rather than using the hardware assist. It is not uncommon for a router to drop to just 300mbps just turning on QoS or some firewall features.
Click to expand...
That's very thoughtful to add that information, thank you.

With your information in mind, could you see any other issue that may have been the cause of my throttled speeds? This seemed to be the only solution when it came to getting the intended outcome.

Also, the NAT function was default to "on" and I have not messed with that setting. The way you explain it, I am understanding that the router should be doing the work and by using the QoS it's my CPU. My wife is the only other person in the house using the internet at super low network demand for work, streaming Netflix, etc.
 
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HBOW said:
That's very thoughtful to add that information, thank you.

With your information in mind, could you see any other issue that may have been the cause of my throttled speeds? This seemed to be the only solution when it came to getting the intended outcome.

Also, the NAT function was default to "on" and I have not messed with that setting. The way you explain it, I am understanding that the router should be doing the work and by using the QoS it's my CPU. My wife is the only other person in the house using the internet at super low network demand for work, streaming Netflix, etc.
Click to expand...
No, he means the "CPU" in the router. As opposed tot he dedicated ASIC chip.
 
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