Question Netgear Nighthawk X4S R7800 speed test question

nitnoid

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I've been having connectivity issues with my new isp and they have determined that I am experiencing intermittent outages and will be out to determine the problem.

My question is in the speed test results that I see when it is actually working. I should have 500Mbps and I see close to that on my phone over the 5g wifi. However, my PC is wired and my results are somewhere between 50-75Mbps. This number is far lower than I expect to see even though everything appears to be working okay. Is this a normal number to see or is it indicative of the actual speed I'm experiencing? I have tried both the isp speed test and the Ookla speed test. Both are generally the same.

I'm wondering if there is a setting in the R7800 router that I could adjust for the wired connection or even if it could be the result of my MB which is an ASRock Z77 extreme4. From what I have seen, the mb should be capable of handling this. Anyway, any input would be greatly appreciated!
 

nitnoid

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As a followup to my previous question, I did find in the router statistics that it shows my LAN port at 100M/Full and not 1000M/Full, so I am assuming that means my motherboard is limiting my data to 100Mbps or below? Maybe a new motherboard is in order unfortunately.
 

nitnoid

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I have checked BIOS and there isn't any setting that I can find. My first thought was the cable so I ordered a new 5e cable for the desktop for testing. The problem is that my laptop, which I can hook directly through a 5e cable also has the same issue, so I connected directly to the modem and I still can only get a 100M connection. Both have specs of 10/100/1000 so I'm kind of at a loss here as to why I cannot get the 1000 connection. All of the 5g wireless devices are getting close to what I expect. Just not making a whole lot of sense to my pea brain.

Thank you for the help though!
 
You can check the setting and make sure it is on auto and not set to say 100mbps. You do not want to set it to 1000 either it must be set to auto because the router is using auto and needs the signaling.
If you look at led for the ports on the router see if they are white or yellow. Manual says they need to be white to be 1gbit.

The port speed is actually a fairly simple thing based on voltages that are detected. It does not really use software so you pretty much have the hardware in the ports or the cables that can be the cause of the problem.
 
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nitnoid

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That makes a whole lot of sense. Just a matter of understanding why its happening to more than one computer but they are definitely older systems. I remember having graphic card issues a while back and the culprit was in the power supply. Just one voltage was sporadically intermittent and very hard to find.

The manual says yellow lights for 100 but ithey look orange to me and never go white. It is set for auto detect but there is not setting to select 1000 manually. Seems networking is a bit over my head even though I pick up little tidbits now and again.

Thank you so much for your help!
 
You may have a number of garbage cables. The vast majority of what is sold on amazon is fake cables that do not meet the standards for ethernet. The most common ones you see are those flat ones that have very thin wires.

You do not need anything special cat5e is good enough but it must have pure copper wire (no CCA) and be wire size 22-24. If you do not see this clearly stated find another vendor the redutible ones know about the fake cables and make it a point to show they sell legit cables.

You can check your current cables to see what is printed on the side. Most say EIA/TIA if they have actual certifications but there are fakes of those too. Make sure it does not say CCA which is copper clad aluminum wire. The wire size should be marked with AWG
 

nitnoid

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Thank you for your help. I installed the new cable today and that was definitely the issue. One of the cables I used for tested was a plain cat5 cable but my other 5e cable was the one that came with the modem. I guess they only want to provide the cheap stuff for cost savings. I hate when an issue is not resolved so I wanted to update in the hopes this helps anyone else having this issue.
 
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