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Increasing Ethernet Connection Speed
I have an Inspiron 3847 which is now about 5 years old. The on-board ethernet adaptor is a PCIe GBe Family controller which I understand is rated at a gig. My new fibre service is giving me 300Mbps which I can pick up at 312 on my ipad but I am having issues with the desktop. I can't use Wifi because the onboard system is 2.4ghz and the new router works much better at 5. I cannot get the rate to run at more than 97 on the ethernet connection and I can't get the card spec to show anything other than "100". It's set to "negotiate". Even if I move everything right down to the router and use a short cable, its the same result. Tried a new plug in card but the same problem. Is this inherrent in the limitations of devices on the mother board which I am stuck with or is there a way around it?
speedstep
9 Legend
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47K Posts
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June 30th, 2020 18:00
if its the right kind of cable the issue is that they did not use pairs.
1 2 3 then 6 1 and 2 is orange 3 and 6 is green pair
if its 1234 straight thru your twisted pairs are twisting in the wind.
thats why you buy pre made molded cables instead of hand made cables that are not properly terminated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFVSbcBJrxw
Doing wallplates is easier than crimp connectors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug5MS0gpfMw
RoHe
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44.3K Posts
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June 24th, 2020 16:00
Always include the version of Windows in your posts...
Do you have the latest Ethernet driver installed for your version of Windows?
What's the rating on your Ethernet cable? CAT5 cable can't handle more than 100 Mbps. CAT5E may be able to handle 1000, but it depends on quality of the cable and length. For a reliable 1000 Mbps link speed, you want CAT6 cable.
Does your router have settings to control which device(s) get priority access to bandwidth? Maybe your PC/Ethernet is low on the priority list. How you change that depends on the router/modem and their software.
You could always disable the add-in WiFi card in Device Manager and plug in a dual band, 2.4- and 5-GHz, USB WiFi dongle, if you think that will faster than Ethernet...
speedstep
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47K Posts
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June 25th, 2020 06:00
remove the internal wifi and throw away.
EDIMAX EW-7811UAC AC600 Dual-band USB 2.0 Wireless Adapter with High Gain Antenna will resolve this
https://www.amazon.com/Edimax-EW-7811UAC-Extension-Reception-Transmission/dp/B00LGN8I40
speedstep
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47K Posts
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June 25th, 2020 06:00
312 on my ipad
ipad does not have ethernet
Speed of router and ethernet does not guarantee everywhere is that fast.
Older Dell User
10 Posts
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June 25th, 2020 14:00
I have made progress. I now realise that the ethernet card can evaluate the cable connection and decide whether to set at 10, 100 or 1Gb. There is nothing in between; furthermore it seems that once it has evaluated the line you can't pursuade it to change with physical network changes.
I picked up the desktop and moved it downstairs to the router and used a short cat5e cable. Immediately the setting changed to 1Gb and ran at 270Mbps. Back upstairs and its 100 again. So I need to throw out the old cable and replace with cat6. No idea what is being used currently but is is most likely to be cat5 but this performance.
If I upgrade the cable and buy a faster switch box, two othe machines in the sme area will benefit too.
(I did look at using a range extender to pick up the wifi and an Ethernet from that to the pc. However unless I paid a lot of money, the ethernet was 10/100 stndard).
RoHe
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44.3K Posts
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June 25th, 2020 15:00
@Older Dell User - Correct, the PC's onboard Ethernet and the router check speed vs accuracy and then use the fastest link speed with least number of errors and re-sends.
There's no guarantee CAT6 cable will give you 1000 Mbps when connected to the PC upstairs. It depends on length of that cable, but CAT6 certainly should have a better chance than CAT5 or CAT5e.
An Ethernet link speed of 1000 Mbps to PC shouldn't be a bottleneck. But if the router has a low amount of RAM and/or slow CPU, that may reduce its performance because it can't handle data as fast as Ethernet wants to send/receive, especially when there are multiple devices active on the network. It may also prioritize WiFi data at the expense of Ethernet data.
Post back and let us know what happens with a CAT6 cable...
Older Dell User
10 Posts
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June 30th, 2020 14:00
@RoHe
I received a made up length of cat6 cable (25m) and have been able to determine that with this cable I can achieve a setting of 1Gb/s on the interface and achieve 280Mbps running download. Strangely the cabe I need to remove is clearly marked cat5e which I have been told should be ok. Perhaps it has a bad connection somewhere.
Thank you for everyone's advice.
RoHe
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44.3K Posts
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June 30th, 2020 16:00
@Older Dell User - The operative words are "should be", but 25 m is really long for a CAT5E cable to be able to carry data reliably at 1000 Mbps.
Glad the CAT6 does the job!
aaronwt
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78 Posts
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June 30th, 2020 18:00
Yes the cable or connectors could easily be bad. That is one of the first things to replace when troubleshooting. A Category 5e cable is rated up to 100 meters (328 feet) for a gigabit connection. Heck I'm able to run 5Gbps on my Cat5e cables here at home. And 10Gbps on my Cat6 cables. But my distances are not more than 30 meters.
I'm in the process of upgrading my backbone to 10Gbps and 5Gbps. And my four Dells will be used with 5Gbps and 10Gbps connections.
aaronwt
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July 8th, 2020 20:00
Older Dell User
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July 9th, 2020 04:00
I have resolved the problem. THe Cat5e had two split pairs in the wiring into the back of the wall socket. Oddly it had been fine with a 45Mbps service provding full speed and with the new service at 300 it could supply 98, limited by the ethernet nic which was set to 100 Mbps and would not uprate. The card obviously saw more of a problem than the signal did! Once I sorted the cross over, the card reset and I have 290/310 at the far end.