Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, Steel, notfred
absurdity wrote:So using the Netgear, your iPad gets the full 16, but your primary system (whatever it is) only gets 12, is what you're saying? Is your primary system wired or wirelessly connected to the Netgear (or do you get the same result for both)?
homerdog wrote:+1 for trying other switch ports.
If just 1 port is bad you can pick up a cheap 100Mbps switch and plug it into a good port on the router if necessary.
notfred wrote:Nope, you want a Gigabit switch on your local LAN, not 100Mb/s and you want to let it autoneg so that it will autoneg the 802.1x flow control. Gigabit internal switches make a huge difference in throwing large files from one box to another.
notfred wrote:Sorry, I meant 802.3x, I always get those two confused.
You always want to autoneg, in addition to pause negotiation (and in the case of 1000BASE-T master/slave negotiation), if you force the speed and that stops the PHY from responding to auto neg and the other side autonegs then the other side believes it is talking to 10Mb/s half duplex ancient stuff. The PHY will normally catch the speed mismatch and give you connectivity, but there is no way to catch the duplex mismatch, leading to a ton of spurious collisions and really terrible performance. Most stuff these days when you force the speed is still doing autoneg just with a limited set of speed/duplex options to avoid exactly this scenario.
Gigabit Ethernet in the home is 1000Base-T and only requires Cat-5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1000BASE-T#1000BASE-T You may get longer runs and better noise immunity on Cat-5e and Cat-6, plus Cat-6 is 10GigE capable, but Cat-5 is sufficient. The signal bandwidth on the cable is the same as 100Base-Tx, it just uses all the pairs bidirectional and with better encoding to get the improved speeds.
Gigabit switches are cheap if you go for the plain unmanaged ones. I've got 3 of the DGS-1008 from D-Link which are currently $50 Canadian http://www.ncix.com/detail/d-link-dgs-1 ... Mgod71oAVQ there are similar from all the other switch manufacturers.
apkellogg wrote:My desktop is hardwired to the router. I have tested my laptop both hardwired and Wifi. As the modem is in the basement, I have only tested the laptop straight to the modem.
Desktop ~ 12 Mbps
Laptop direct to modem by Ethernet ~ 16 Mbps
Laptop to router by Ethernet ~ 12 Mpbs
Laptop by Wifi - can't remember, will retest tonight
iPad ~ 16 Mbps