Question Perplexing network problem ?

[MarcoRN]

Greetings All!

New member here with a problem that has me at wit's end! I've got a 6 year old PC running Windows 11 that is still working well. Integrated on the motherboard is a 1Gb Ethernet connection. It runs to a 1Gb switch then on to a 1Gb port on my Router. My internet service is however only 100Mb.

Here's the issue.... I'm preparing for an update to our Internet speed and want to update my my internal network as well so I installed an Intel X550-T2 Network Card in the PC that could give me up to 10Gb speeds. When I use the onboard 1Gb Ethernet connection plugged into the switch it auto negotiates to 1Gb...no issue.
But when I plug the same cable into the Intel NIC it auto negotiates to only 100Mb ?

I've tried different cables, switch ports, Settings are identical on both adapters...not sure why and how to resolve. Any ideas from the forum??

 

[cruisetung]

Have you try to set X550-T2 manually to 1Gbps?

Also inspect the pins on the NIC

 

[bill001g]

First before you spend lots of money on stuff why do you think you need more than even 1gbit. High bandwidth is only really used for very large file downloads it does nothing for almost any other application. For internet you will find even if you were to buy 10gbit internet sites put artificial limits on the traffic to make sure people with very fast internet do not overload the server site. Many people say steam for example will not allow above 2gbit and many times much much less.

Mostly people that use 10gbit nic are using some kind of high speed network inside their house. They have a need to access data stored on a remote machine inside their house. Something like video rendering is a example. It is a rather rare use case for someone to actually need these kind of speeds in a home network.

Do you really only have 100mbps internet. Even going to just 1gbit will be massively faster and likely much more than you will ever be able to use.

Hard to say what you actual issue is. The speeds detection and negotiation is done at a hardware level. This function is part of the chip when it is manufactured and drivers etc do not really do much other than say allow you to force a slower speed. Did you try to plug it into a different device like your router. Maybe there is some incompatibility in the switch when talking to 10gbit ports. This is very hard to say since this is done by the devices detecting voltages and resistances on the pins rather than sending messages.

10gbit port are much more sensitive to cable quality. There are massive amounts of fake ethernet cable sold. Those flat cables in particular. It should run at 1gbit on most eternet cables but if you are really going to run 10gbit you need cat6a cables. Do not get conned into buying cat8 since most those cables are also fakes.

It is unlikely the 10gbit nic is defective but you would need a 10gbit switch to really test it.

 

[Ralston18]

Connectivity?

"It runs to a 1Gb switch then on to a 1Gb port on my Router."

I.e.:

ISP === (coax, DSL, Fiber) ===> Modem [Ethernet port] ---- Ethernet cable ----> [LAN port] Switch [LAN port] --- Ethernet cable ---> [WAN port] Router [ LAN ports] ---Ethernet cable to wired devices and ~~~~> wireless devices.

Edit and correct as applicable.

Make and model information for modem, switch, and router?

Why is the switch installed (if that is indeed the case) before the router?

Any other devices and/or networks connected?

 

[MarcoRN]

Have you try to set X550-T2 manually to 1Gbps?

Also inspect the pins on the

Yes I have tried setting the X550-T2 to 1Gb manually it will not negotiate with the switch...NIc pins are fine..

 

[cruisetung]

What if connected to the router?

It could be cable quality as suggested.

And you really don't need 10G card just for internet unless you want to setup an internal NAS/server environment also as mentioned above.

And if you have 10G card then you should have a 10G switch to test.

 

[MarcoRN]

I forgot to Mention when I remove the switch from the set-up completely and connect Directly from X550-T2 to the router all is well at 1Gb.

Here are more details on the configuration:

Incoming Fiber ===> ONT ===> Cat6a Ethernet cable ===> Router (Netgear RAXE 500 6e Router) ===> Cat6a Ethernet Cable ===> TP-Link 5 port 1Gb Unmanaged Switch ===> PC (with X550-T2 and Onboard 1Gb Port).
The switch also facilitates connection to other devices, (NAS, PCs, Macs via ethernet).
The router also facilitates WiFi connections on all 3 bands.

All your replys and help are welcome.. There appears to be some incompatibility between the X550-T2 and the TP-Link Switch. I have a new switch arriving today that I will try.

 

[cruisetung]

It's possible Intel NIC has compatibility issues. Several years back Intel has a 2.5Gbps chip that's not compatible with several brand/model of switches and was slow compared to Realtek chip and need a firmware update,

 

[bill001g]

If it runs fine to the router then just wait until you get a 10g switch to do further testing.

You can use the internal 1gbit port until that time.

There likely is some strange incompatibility with the switch you have and the 10gbit nic card.

 

[MarcoRN]

Problem Solved! Thaks to everyone for their input.... I installed a new 10Gb switch and all is functioning GREAT! It appears there was some sort of incompatibility between the Intel X550-T2 and the 1Gb TP-Link Switch... Go figure....

 

[bill001g]

It has only been recently....well maybe 10 years...that 10gbit was even run on copper. It used to all be optical and that generally only can run at 1 speed and they generally used 10gbit optics.

10gbit is only getting in the consumer market because the price has dropped so much. Not a lot of use cases for the general users so there is not much discussion of forums like this. Even the 2.5g port many machines come with are massively more than most people will ever need, it just costs about the same to make 1gbit and 2.5g ethernet chipset it seems.