Connection speed locked at 10 Mbps

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Pavel_6

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Feb 27, 2016
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Hello! I used to have a connection speed of usually ~70 Mbps to my PC but a few weeks ago it dropped down to 10 Mbps and it has stayed this way. I have tried other devices and the speed seems normal.

The speed and duplex in my NIC configuration is set to 1 Gbps/full duplex but I've tried 100 Mbps half/full duplex as well with the same result: Windows reads the network as 10 Mbps.

At around the same time we moved things around the house, which included moving the router and getting a new ethernet cable from the router to my PC. It's a quite generic looking cable provided from my ISP. Could this be the bottleneck?
 
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gasaraki

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Jun 11, 2008
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Could be but unless it's some REALLY old cable like CAT3 cable I doubt it. One thing it could be is the cable is slightly damaged.

I'm assuming the NIC drivers didn't change on your computer? Is the router auto negotiating to 1Gb also or is it stuck at 10Mb?
 
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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You want to leave that setting on auto. If you set in manually you must set both ends and most routers do not have that ability.

This is almost always a cable issue. It is hard to tell by looking at the cables if they are good. Many times one wire in one end connector gets just slightly loose and you get problems.

I would try another cable. You want to avoid buying that flat cable or any copper clad aluminum cables.

It could be a problem with the port on the pc or the router but since you can't fix that you have to really hope it is the cable. There is not really any setting that make much difference. The AUTO setting should always work and run at 1gbit if your router also has gigabit ports.
 
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Pavel_6

Commendable
Feb 27, 2016
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The cable has no visible damage to it. The writing on it says CAT 5E. The cable that the router gets signal from looks long enough to reach my PC, I'll try that next.

Update: Left the speed at auto, switching the cables around didn't affect the speed. Checked the other cable on my dad's notebook and the network ran at a normal speed. I've tried lots of different drivers for the NIC and since that period I've also experimented with other OSs, including Win 10 and Linux Mint which leads me to believe that the NIC is going out. I'm using the built-in adapter on my Asus M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 mobo.
 
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Solandri

Solandri

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Jan 4, 2012
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70 Mbps is really unusual for Ethernet. It will almost always connect and transfer at 10, 100, or 1000 Mbps. Getting speeds other than those is indicative of a signal quality problem. The most likely culprit is the cable, but you seem to have half-eliminated that. Just to be sure, try a different cable with your PC. The shorter the better. The fact that the current cable works fine with another computer doesn't necessarily eliminate it as the culprit. Some ethernet cards generate a stronger signal than others, and can work at full speed with a marginal cable that gives other ethernet cards problems. And in my experience the onboard NIC built into motherboards tend to be the lowest quality.

Get a flashlight and check the ethernet port on your PC, and also the router/switch that the PC is plugging into. Make sure the connecting pins all spring up/down properly, and that they're clear of debris and corrosion. If you have a spare router or switch, try connecting your PC to that and see what kind of speeds you get. It's very rare but I've encountered two pieces of networking equipment which didn't want to play with each other, and putting a switch in between them made them happy.

Otherwise, I'd agree with your diagnosis that the onboard NIC is likely going bad. Fortunately, add-on NIC cards are plentiful. I like the Intel NICs, but they do tend to cost more.
 
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Pavel_6

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Feb 27, 2016
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Oh, yeah, 70 Mbps is my contract, I can't remember clearly now, but I think it used to be 100 Mbps in the settings before this started. I've also been having another issue where if I unplug and plug the ethernet cable connecting the router with my PC, my computer fails to establish a connection untill I restart my router.

Update: Since everyone went to sleep, I had the chance to turn off the router and plug the cable from the street directly into my PC and I did get 100 Mpbs in the network settings, so the NIC is still holding up? Back to the drawing board, I guess.
 
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