Question Not getting full speed with ethernet cable

[christofferskr]

I recently replaced my ethernet cable due to getting lower speeds than what i used to get and timing out. I came to the conclusion that it had to be the ethernet cable that was at fault. I was getiing 90/90 while paying for 150/150. I replaced the cable yesterday. I'm no longer timing out (or I haven't since I swapped cable), but I'm still at the same speed as what i was getting before swapping. I have terminated the ends over and over again, but I still only get 90/90. I know 90/90 is very usable, but I would still like to get the full 150/150.

I have contacted my ISP, but they told me nothing was wrong on their end. I have restarted my router and also reset it and updated it, but nothing helps.

 

[christofferskr]

Did you check the continuity of the pairs inside the cable with a cable tester?

I am going to, but the friend I'm going to borrow from hasn't gotten his hands on one yet. Hopefully he'll get one before the weekend.

 

[Ralston18]

From Post #18:

"I had the excact same problem with the cable I had before this one, which is why I think it's so odd that I am having the excact same issue with the new cable, but not with a shorter cable. "

And the tested cables (long and short) are all being run along the same 30 m (Post #16) physical path?

Just for the record: what are the actual long and short cable lengths?

Do the cables have real length marks (foot markings) on the outer jacket/insulation?

What is actually printed on the cables?

Reference:

https://www.truecable.com/blogs/cable-academy/ethernet-cable-id-for-beginners

 

[christofferskr]

From Post #18:

"I had the excact same problem with the cable I had before this one, which is why I think it's so odd that I am having the excact same issue with the new cable, but not with a shorter cable. "

And the tested cables (long and short) are all being run along the same 30 m (Post #16) physical path?

Just for the record: what are the actual long and short cable lengths?

Do the cables have real length marks (foot markings) on the outer jacket/insulation?

What is actually printed on the cables?

Reference:

https://www.truecable.com/blogs/cable-academy/ethernet-cable-id-for-beginners

The long cable is 30m and its run on the wall outside my house. It is meant for outside use and is UV-shielded. The short cable is just a 2m cable i had. I just wanted to check if the router or PC was at fault, that's why i tested with a shorter cable. The short cable was not run along the 30m cable. I tested the short one inside.

This is what's written on the cable: dGroup UTP 4x2x23AWG CAT.6 Hybrid Cable 100 OHM 01/21 304m.

The cable does not have length marks. It only says (304m) which was the length of the entire cable before i cut out the 30m.

 

[Ralston18]

Interesting. The specs seem to be lacking.

Really wondering about the quality of that cable: Where made, how sold etc.. Degrading through use and even time.

FYI:

https://www.truecable.com/blogs/cable-academy/ethernet-cable-id-for-beginners

Now, in all fairness, that could be due to a number of reasons depending on country, governing agencies, accepted standards, what products are actually available. etc..

dGroup? Distributor - correct?

https://www.dgroup.no/file/standardmappe-uni/10616100.pdf

https://itnetworks.softing.com/where-to-buy/emea/norway-dgroup-as/

All in all the history and cable specs have all raised some questions in my mind.

Normal "packaging" being a roll(spool)/box of 334 meters? (Box = 1,000 feet?)

Solid wires - all copper? Are you sure that the correct terminators are being used?

Did the original cable come from the same box or was the original cable an entirely different product?

UV shielded meaning the cable is run in a conduit of some sort - correct? Or just exposed?

I will have to defer to those who really know cables and are comfortable with the cabling being used.

However, my thought is that the cable is very suspect.

 

[christofferskr]

Interesting. The specs seem to be lacking.

Really wondering about the quality of that cable: Where made, how sold etc.. Degrading through use and even time.

FYI:

https://www.truecable.com/blogs/cable-academy/ethernet-cable-id-for-beginners

Now, in all fairness, that could be due to a number of reasons depending on country, governing agencies, accepted standards, what products are actually available. etc..

dGroup? Distributor - correct?

https://www.dgroup.no/file/standardmappe-uni/10616100.pdf

https://itnetworks.softing.com/where-to-buy/emea/norway-dgroup-as/

All in all the history and cable specs have all raised some questions in my mind.

Normal "packaging" being a roll(spool)/box of 334 meters? (Box = 1,000 feet?)

Solid wires - all copper? Are you sure that the correct terminators are being used?

Did the original cable come from the same box or was the original cable an entirely different product?

UV shielded meaning the cable is run in a conduit of some sort - correct? Or just exposed?

I will have to defer to those who really know cables and are comfortable with the cabling being used.

However, my thought is that the cable is very suspect.

I got the cable trough my friend who works as an eletrician so i would think the cable is up to standard.

I had the excact same problem with my old cable as I have with the new cable.

 

[bill001g]

I am not sure if this has been recommended in this thread yet. On long cables that tend to be fairly permanent installs I would use keystones on the ends and then short commercial patch cables.

Keystones are much more expensive but you can do 1 wire at a time and if there is some issue it is easy to pull the wires out cut a bit off and try again. They make keystone that are tool less or come with a plastic punch down tool so no extra tools to buy.

A keystone is generally much simpler for a beginning user to get correct than crimping ends on cables.

 

[Ralston18]

May be up to standard and I would hope so. Unfortunately there is a great deal of bogus, sub-standard Ethernet cabling being sold these days. To everyone, everywhere at all levels.

And all the more so in recent years: Cable date (supposedly) being 01/21 does not exclude fake or substandard materials and construction. Shady manufacturers would do a run of the exact same cable and just print Cat 8 (or whatever standard seems to be the current "must have" requirement) on the jacket. Along with whatever other bogus specs they feel are necessary to make the cable appear legitimate.

Again that leads me back to having the same problem with the old cable as with the new cable. What has not yet been tried, tested, or otherwise done as a matter of elimination?

If the long path has not been changed, route the long cable elsewhere. Is the Ethernet cable in a conduit of some sort? Or sharing the path with other wires of any sort? Maybe even pipes - who knows. Cables get run knowingly and unknowingly in all sorts of ways.....

Compare both the old and new cables to some other known working (at 30 meter distances or greater) cables. What do you see and feel?

Prove that it is not the cable. By elimination if anything.

 

[Ralston18]

Referencing myself:

"Again that leads me back to having the same problem with the old cable as with the new cable. What has not yet been tried, tested, or otherwise done as a matter of elimination? "

Keystones - certainly something that can and should be done per @bill001g.

 

[Historical Fidelity]

Are you using CAT 5E cable or CAT5 to make you cables?
Cat5 is only good for 100mbps connection. Which with overhead is about 90mbps.
Also your modem, router and switches must all support gigabit Ethernet to get above the 100mbps limit.And all cables connecting them. .
One device or cable can make the whole system run at 100mbps.

100% agree, I helped my parents address a bandwidth issue at their house not too long ago. They were paying for 400mbps but only saw 100mbps. Turns out they were running cat5 cable so I replaced it with cat5e and now they have the full 400mbps.

 

[christofferskr]

100% agree, I helped my parents address a bandwidth issue at their house not too long ago. They were paying for 400mbps but only saw 100mbps. Turns out they were running cat5 cable so I replaced it with cat5e and now they have the full 400mbps.

I am using cat6 and I know my router support gigabit speeds.

 

[gggplaya]

Is this pure copper or CCA(copper clad aluminum) cable?

If you take a piece of scrap cable from your spool, you can cut it to check if if it’s silvery color in the middle.

 

[kanewolf]

I've tried terminating the cable over and over again and it always gives me 90/90.

Did you follow the 568B color code on both ends?

 

[christofferskr]

Did you follow the 568B color code on both ends?

yes

 

[christofferskr]

May be up to standard and I would hope so. Unfortunately there is a great deal of bogus, sub-standard Ethernet cabling being sold these days. To everyone, everywhere at all levels.

And all the more so in recent years: Cable date (supposedly) being 01/21 does not exclude fake or substandard materials and construction. Shady manufacturers would do a run of the exact same cable and just print Cat 8 (or whatever standard seems to be the current "must have" requirement) on the jacket. Along with whatever other bogus specs they feel are necessary to make the cable appear legitimate.

Again that leads me back to having the same problem with the old cable as with the new cable. What has not yet been tried, tested, or otherwise done as a matter of elimination?

If the long path has not been changed, route the long cable elsewhere. Is the Ethernet cable in a conduit of some sort? Or sharing the path with other wires of any sort? Maybe even pipes - who knows. Cables get run knowingly and unknowingly in all sorts of ways.....

Compare both the old and new cables to some other known working (at 30 meter distances or greater) cables. What do you see and feel?

Prove that it is not the cable. By elimination if anything.

I just tested the cable with a cable tester and it shows that all 8 pins are connected, so the cable doesn't seem to be faulty. The tester is a little old, but it still shows that all pins are connected.

 

[christofferskr]

I am not sure if this has been recommended in this thread yet. On long cables that tend to be fairly permanent installs I would use keystones on the ends and then short commercial patch cables.

Keystones are much more expensive but you can do 1 wire at a time and if there is some issue it is easy to pull the wires out cut a bit off and try again. They make keystone that are tool less or come with a plastic punch down tool so no extra tools to buy.

A keystone is generally much simpler for a beginning user to get correct than crimping ends on cables.

I just tested the cable with a cable tester and it shows that all 8 pins are connected, so the cable doesn't seem to be faulty. The tester is a little old, but it still shows that all pins are connected.

 

[Ralston18]

That is only a basic continuity test. Primarily only indicates that the cable is not broken/disconnected somewhere.

However, a short in the cable could even make continuity misleading.

The continuity test does not show if the cable truly works at network speeds or is actually (via UTP) managing crosstalk and/or interference.

Were you able to check a piece of the cable per @gggplaya - Post #36?

 

[christofferskr]

That is only a basic continuity test. Primarily only indicates that the cable is not broken/disconnected somewhere.

However, a short in the cable could even make continuity misleading.

The continuity test does not show if the cable truly works at network speeds or is actually (via UTP) managing crosstalk and/or interference.

Were you able to check a piece of the cable per @gggplaya - Post #36?

You mean cutting off a piece and tesing it by itself?

The tester can show different results, one of which is if the cable is shorted and the result was "connected".

 

[Ralston18]

I was asking about checking the cable wires to determine if they are full copper or copper-clad aluminum (silver).

Per @gggplaya -Post #36. "If you take a piece of scrap cable from your spool, you can cut it to check if if it’s silvery color in the middle."

= = = =

As for continuity that is a bit of a given because the cable does work.

The problem is that the cable does not work at expected or supported speeds per the specifications.

At least for longer lengths....

Late thought: and the cable is solid wire, not braided wire - correct?

 

[christofferskr]

I was asking about checking the cable wires to determine if they are full copper or copper-clad aluminum (silver).

Per @gggplaya -Post #36. "If you take a piece of scrap cable from your spool, you can cut it to check if if it’s silvery color in the middle."

= = = =

As for continuity that is a bit of a given because the cable does work.

The problem is that the cable does not work at expected or supported speeds per the specifications.

At least for longer lengths....

Late thought: and the cable is solid wire, not braided wire - correct?

Yes, it's solid wire.

If it has a silvery color is it shorted?

 

[bill001g]

If you were to cut the wire across and then use a magnifier you would see a core made of aluminum and copper coating on the outside....ie CCA.

This mostly works or they would not get away with selling this crap. It has more issues at longer distance and has issues running PoE because the resistance is much higher. The ends also tend to work loose over time because of the copper and aluminum expand and contract at different rates. A lot of the same reasons why aluminum wire is very restricted for electrical use.

People buy it because it is cheaper, there is less copper metal in the cable which is near all time record high prices.

Most times they print CCA on the outside but it would have to be a honest company.

What you might try is stick a cheap switch in between. Sometimes different equipment will tolerate marginal cables better.

 

[christofferskr]

If you were to cut the wire across and then use a magnifier you would see a core made of aluminum and copper coating on the outside....ie CCA.

This mostly works or they would not get away with selling this crap. It has more issues at longer distance and has issues running PoE because the resistance is much higher. The ends also tend to work loose over time because of the copper and aluminum expand and contract at different rates. A lot of the same reasons why aluminum wire is very restricted for electrical use.

People buy it because it is cheaper, there is less copper metal in the cable which is near all time record high prices.

Most times they print CCA on the outside but it would have to be a honest company.

What you might try is stick a cheap switch in between. Sometimes different equipment will tolerate marginal cables better.

I checked and it loooks like its copper all the way through. I can't see any silvery inside. Could it be possible that it's a router issue?

 

[bill001g]

In theory at least a ethernet port should function to 100 meters on a properly made ethernet cable at 1gbit.

The speed negotiation is actually done mostly by hardware but lately I have seen so called "green" energy things. Some switches with this feature have lots of trouble with long cables.

I guess you could check the router and the motherboard to be sure it is not using that.

Do you have another router or switch you can can try on either end of the cable. You pretty much just need something that has lights that will show if you get gigabit or 100mbps. That would rule out a bad port in the equipment. It is pretty rare to get a bad port.

 

[christofferskr]

In theory at least a ethernet port should function to 100 meters on a properly made ethernet cable at 1gbit.

The speed negotiation is actually done mostly by hardware but lately I have seen so called "green" energy things. Some switches with this feature have lots of trouble with long cables.

I guess you could check the router and the motherboard to be sure it is not using that.

Do you have another router or switch you can can try on either end of the cable. You pretty much just need something that has lights that will show if you get gigabit or 100mbps. That would rule out a bad port in the equipment. It is pretty rare to get a bad port.

I do have an extender which i could try to plug in the end of my cable and then test the WiFi output of the extender.

I also tried using WiFi on the same PC to see if I had any issues. When using WiFi i get the correct speeds, but I still randomly lose connection just like I do with the ethernet cable.

 

[bill001g]

What you are most interested in does it connect at 1gbit. This assumes the extender has 1gbit ports. If the extender connects at 1gbit then the cable might be ok and your port has some issue. If the extender has 2 ethernet ports use it as a switch and see if you get gigabit on both ports.

If you are losing the connection you need to watch the lights on the extender and see if they go out. That is a very different problem that either data loss or something like the internet itself going down.

 

[christofferskr]

What you are most interested in does it connect at 1gbit. This assumes the extender has 1gbit ports. If the extender connects at 1gbit then the cable might be ok and your port has some issue. If the extender has 2 ethernet ports use it as a switch and see if you get gigabit on both ports.

If you are losing the connection you need to watch the lights on the extender and see if they go out. That is a very different problem that either data loss or something like the internet itself going down.

I tried plugging the ethernet cable into the extender, but it's still only outputting 90/90.

I have the same problem where I get disconnected suddenly over WiFi. I pretty much only notice it when gaming, but it's the excact same over WiFi as it is when using the cable. There is no lag before or after the internet times out.
I spoke with my ISP again today and they told me they would look into it. If they find any problems they will issue a new router.