[SOLVED] Is 100 Mbps my maximum internet speed

[tbeb]

My laptop is a Toshiba C55-B5382 that I purchased in 2015. (Operating system is Windows 10 Home
64 -bit.). Network card is a Realtek PCIe
FE Family Controller, and it’s speed is
100 Mbps. My internet plan with Comcast is 300 Mbps. 2 questions: 1. Can my laptop internet speed only be up to 100 Mbps?
2. If it is, is there a way to make it faster?

 

[R_1]

the built in controller is only a 10/100 capable unit.
if you have a PCMCIA slot or USB 3.0 your system has USB 2.0 which supports 480Mbps, you can get a USB adapter assuming you can find one that is not limited to 100Mbps. you can get an external solution that would allow full speed.
its a new adapter or saving money and cutting back on the internet to 100.

 

[richiestang_78]

Keep in mind 100Mbps is more then enough for general internet use. Almost every website will have transfer caps way lower then that so unless you need to do interneal network file transfers or have a site that allows for unlimited download rates what you are getting is fine.

 

[tbeb]

Thanks for the replies.

It's Saturday afternoon, 2:40 pm. I just did 5 speed tests at speedtest. xfinity.com.
Download speeds were 54.5, 57.2, 58.5, 64.7, and 67.8. My laptop is connected to the modem with an ethernet cord. Modem is a 342 Mbps DOCSIS 3.0.

I just thought I'd like to get the speed I'm paying for, without buying a new laptop with a faster card.

 

[mortemas]

As mentioned earlier, you could try a USB 3.0 to Gigabit Ethernet dongle (see link below). Your laptop should have a blue USB 3.0 port to plug it into. You should get up to the 300Mbps you are paying for, assuming no bottlenecks from ISP or remote throttling, or any hardware bottlenecks from your pentium based laptop. Whether you'll notice the difference is another story. If you download large files (like 50GB games from Steam) you'll notice a difference, but I think even 4k streaming only needs a stable 25 Mbps according to Netflix.

https://www.amazon.com/Plugable-Ethernet-Gigabit-10-100-1000-Compatible/dp/B00AQM8586

 

[SamirD]

I have a lot of older laptops that top out at 100Mbps because that's all the Ethetnet can do.

Since you have a usb 3.0 port, I would recommend a 2.5Gbs or 1Gbps usb3.0 nic. That should easily let you get the full speeds you are paying for.

You may also want to try your wireless networking as it may be faster than 100Mbps (but probably not my much even if it is).

 

[tbeb]

My comcast plan is 300 Mbps. Comcast says my modem (Zoom 5341J) is compatible with a 200 Mbps plan and not a 300 Mbps plan. Zoom tech support told me speed would fluctuate wildly and be very inconsistent with this modem hardwired to my laptop. My router has 10/100 ports. My laptop network card is 10/100. I connect modem to router to laptop with ethernet cable. Speed tests at speedtest.xfinity.com are 54.5, 57.2, 58.5, 64.7, and 67.8. Pretty similar every time I run test.

If I replace modem with one that’s compatible with a 300 Mbps plan, will my speed be more consistent or will it do anything else? (I understand other components limit speed to 100.)

 

[SamirD]

My comcast plan is 300 Mbps. Comcast says my modem (Zoom 5341J) is compatible with a 200 Mbps plan and not a 300 Mbps plan. Zoom tech support told me speed would fluctuate wildly and be very inconsistent with this modem hardwired to my laptop. My router has 10/100 ports. My laptop network card is 10/100. I connect modem to router to laptop with ethernet cable. Speed tests at speedtest.xfinity.com are 54.5, 57.2, 58.5, 64.7, and 67.8. Pretty similar every time I run test.

If I replace modem with one that’s compatible with a 300 Mbps plan, will my speed be more consistent or will it do anything else? (I understand other components limit speed to 100.)

Speeds may get a bit better (closer to 100Mbps), but I wouldn't expect more than a 10Mbps jump.

I think at this point you're wasting money for the 300Mbps plan if you're not planning on upgrading the router and laptop nic to gigabit. Downgrading the plan might save you enough to upgrade everything and then move back to 300Mbps service. And then you can worry about the cable modem.

 

[tbeb]

My 24 -month contract with Comcast expired. I chose a plan with the cheapest monthly payment and that included 300 Mbps.

 

[SamirD]

My 24 -month contract with Comcast expired. I chose a plan with the cheapest monthly payment and that included 300 Mbps.

Gotcha. Well, you've got 3 things that are limiting your speed--your modem, your router, and your laptop nic.

Your current modem should be able to break the 100Mbps mark, but the router and laptop won't. I think a newer router with a gigabit port might get you closer to the 100Mbps mark, but that's assuming that the router can't handle a full 100Mbps connection as was common during that era of routers. A nice entry level Archer c5 will do nicely for this and should be well under $100.

The next bottleneck would be your laptop nic, which the easiest solution would be to get a usb 3.0 1Gbps or 2.5Gbps wired adapter. You could also get a wireless one that should help you break the 100Mbps mark. Should cost under $50 or so.

Finally, an upgrade in modem will round out your needed upgrades. A used modem with better capabilities should be under $50.

This should give you several options to start with and a path with the most economical and higher impact upgrades first.

 

[tbeb]

Gotcha. Well, you've got 3 things that are limiting your speed--your modem, your router, and your laptop nic.

Your current modem should be able to break the 100Mbps mark, but the router and laptop won't. I think a newer router with a gigabit port might get you closer to the 100Mbps mark, but that's assuming that the router can't handle a full 100Mbps connection as was common during that era of routers. A nice entry level Archer c5 will do nicely for this and should be well under $100.

The next bottleneck would be your laptop nic, which the easiest solution would be to get a usb 3.0 1Gbps or 2.5Gbps wired adapter. You could also get a wireless one that should help you break the 100Mbps mark. Should cost under $50 or so.

Finally, an upgrade in modem will round out your needed upgrades. A used modem with better capabilities should be under $50.

This should give you several options to start with and a path with the most economical and higher impact upgrades first.

I don't understand what "but that's assuming that the router can't handle a full 100Mbps connection" means. Does it mean if the router is receiving less than 100Mbps from the modem?

 

[SamirD]

I don't understand what "but that's assuming that the router can't handle a full 100Mbps connection" means. Does it mean if the router is receiving less than 100Mbps from the modem?

So routers route--that's their job, and it requires processing. Back in the day when Internet speeds never even approached 20Mbps, they never made the routers with enough processing power to handle 100Mbps of Internet at full speed even though the port was 100Mbps. (It's call the 'WAN to LAN throughput' if you want to read more about it.)

So what ended up happening is that you had routers that had a 100Mbps port, but could only route a maximum that was less than 100Mbps, which is why I suspect you're topping out at only ~60Mbps.

If you connected directly to the modem, I would think you'd hit 80Mbps+ as the modem should be able to transfer in excess of 100Mbps, but would be limited by the 100Mbps port of your laptop. The router can't process this fast enough so it gets limited to what you are seeing: ~60Mbps.

Does this help?

 

[tbeb]

So routers route--that's their job, and it requires processing. Back in the day when Internet speeds never even approached 20Mbps, they never made the routers with enough processing power to handle 100Mbps of Internet at full speed even though the port was 100Mbps. (It's call the 'WAN to LAN throughput' if you want to read more about it.)

So what ended up happening is that you had routers that had a 100Mbps port, but could only route a maximum that was less than 100Mbps, which is why I suspect you're topping out at only ~60Mbps.

If you connected directly to the modem, I would think you'd hit 80Mbps+ as the modem should be able to transfer in excess of 100Mbps, but would be limited by the 100Mbps port of your laptop. The router can't process this fast enough so it gets limited to what you are seeing: ~60Mbps.

Does this help?

With laptop wired to modem, speed test done 10 minutes ago was 54.7, 64.1, 64.8, 69.3, and 72.9. Not much different than speed with laptop wired to router. So now what should I do to get laptop speed when wired to router closer to 100 Mbps? I know I could get a faster modem, a faster router, and a USB 3.0 to 1Gbps wired adapter to take full advantage of my Comcast 300 Mbps plan, but I don't really need that speed for email, internet surfing, and occasionally streaming movies from the Comcast app. I guess another advantage of doing that would be faster wifi speed with laptop, Amazon fire, and 2 iphones.

 

[SamirD]

With laptop wired to modem, speed test done 10 minutes ago was 54.7, 64.1, 64.8, 69.3, and 72.9. Not much different than speed with laptop wired to router. So now what should I do to get laptop speed when wired to router closer to 100 Mbps? I know I could get a faster modem, a faster router, and a USB 3.0 to 1Gbps wired adapter to take full advantage of my Comcast 300 Mbps plan, but I don't really need that speed for email, internet surfing, and occasionally streaming movies from the Comcast app. I guess another advantage of doing that would be faster wifi speed with laptop, Amazon fire, and 2 iphones.

Thank you for the data. So it looks like the bottleneck may be at the modem itself. I'd change that first. If your router is not bottlenecking (which I don't think is the main bottleneck anymore), then you should see a bump up in speed. And that may be enough to get you close to 100Mbps. The other upgrades you could do later to improve speeds more.