Recently Got Fibre Installed, Wireless Connections are fine, but Ethernet is only getting 30Mbps

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SteveyFreaq

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So a couple months ago I finally got fibre installed after years of ~8Mbps. Paid for a 250Mbps package, only received 30Mbps. Didn't think anything of it because it's still faster than I was getting, figured I might complain eventually but whatever.

Last weekend, I came home and the speeds were down to 5Mbps. Wtf? Load up my phone to see if it's across everything (note I hadn't done a wireless speed test on the fibre at all yet) and I get 250Mbps. So I buy a couple new Cat6 cables and plug them in, still getting 30Mbps.

I use a couple of powerline adapters and have a gigabit ethernet adapter on the motherboard of my desktop. Tried plugging it directly into the router and still got 30Mbps. Had the router and cables tested today and they aren't causing the problem.

Anyone got any ideas?
 
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You have limited things that can make a port run at 100mbps.

1. The cable is bad.
2. The port on the PC is bad---which generally can't be fixed.
3. The port on the router is bad which is unlikely if you tried a couple.

....Other than you configuring it to run at 100mbps there is not much else that can cause this.

Now why it does not get say 90mbps rather than 30mbps indicates there is something in addition.

The reason you plug directly into the modem is just to see if maybe the cable works on the modem and not the router. I would also try the cable that you know works at gigabit between the modem and the router.

The problem now days is there is a lot of fake cable being sold. Some is made with CCA rather than pure copper...
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anotherdrew

anotherdrew

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I have seen a couple times where people will setup QoS on their routers based on their current connection speed (some routers do speed tests to help determine this). When they upgrade service, they don't update the connection speed in QoS, so that is something to look at.

Have also helped a couple people with a very similar problem that a router reset fixed the problem (do backup your setting or write them down before resetting).
 
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SteveyFreaq

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ISP is who tested the router in front of me, they say there's nothing wrong with the speed at their end. And even if traffic was causing the issue, that would mean that WiFi speeds would be affected too.

Also, ISP provided a new fibre router when we upgraded. I don't even know what QoS is so thank you for abbreviating it.
 
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anotherdrew

anotherdrew

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QoS is Quality of Service. It's also called Traffic Management, Traffic Shaping, WMM, WME, and probably some other things. The basic idea is to smooth out the peaks in usage so that when your wife is watching Netflix and you decide to download the newest version whatever, her Netflix does not start buffering because of your bandwidth usage. It does this by limiting the speed of your download. It seems that many router/modems that provide wifi tend to give preference to the wifi (I guess it's a wifi world nowadays and I am just an ancient dinosaur).

I have read accounts of people turning these QoS features on and off and see no effect on wireless download speeds, but wired download speeds will double, triple or more. And then others see no difference at all.
 
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anotherdrew

anotherdrew

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Based on all the information so far, the problem is with your computer (unlikely), your cables (very unlikely), or your router. A definitive test of the computer would be to plug another computer in. If the problem persists, it's not your computer. Can you borrow a friend's laptop for an hour?

As for the router:

It seems that your router has 4 LAN ports. I assume you have tried plugging into a different LAN port (the yellow ones in pictures I found).

I also assume that there is a ethernet cable coming out of the WAN port (red) of the router going to a 2nd box (a fiber modem).

You said that the router was tested. How was it tested? Did your ISP come to your house and setup the router or did they just mail it to you with some directions? Who is your ISP? Have you ever logged into the router and changed any settings?

I am tempted to ask you to bypass the router and plug your computer directly into the fiber modem (assuming I got your setup right) and retest. This should work, but your computer would be directly connected to the internet with only Microsoft's flimsy firewall keeping you safe (thus I hesitate). Ideally, I would ask you to install a different router to test the connection, but I don't know if you have access to one or if there is any kind of special configuration on your current router.

You could also try a factory reset of the router, but without knowing if there is any special configuration that you might lose, I am hesitant.
 
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SteveyFreaq

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Tried it on a laptop as that is the only thing that we own that is able to be plugged into the router because of where it is, same issue. Unfortunately, no one around that I can borrow something off of.

Tried different ports, same issue.

ISP originally came to the hosue and set it up, took it into my ISP along with the newer cable I purchased, they plugged it into their system and ran speedtests on every port twice with their cable, and twice with my own. All results were 200+Mbps.

Never changed any settings on the router and the fibre modem is too far away from the powerline adapters to be plugged into.
 
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anotherdrew

anotherdrew

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Darn it ... you said that. I'm sorry.

Have you ever tried turning off the WiFi and retesting?
I know you have been using speedtest.net ... ever try any others? google speedtest?

The only thing I have left is to take your laptop, your cable, and your router to your ISP ... but I have a feeling it would test fine when you do and then slow down again when you get home.

** Update - Was reading another person's experience and they found having jumbo frames enabled killed their gigabit connection. Worth check in your device properties.
 
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SteveyFreaq

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Yeah, I've tried other speedtest sites and they all give me the same results. Taken router and cable into my ISP, they were who tested it and there are no issues there. Tried turning the WiFi off, still no difference in speeds. And what are jumbo frames, and where would I find them?
 
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bill001g

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Generally is it a bad cable that causes it to only run at 100mbit. Since you have new cables that makes it even more strange. Check that the nic in the pc is set to auto.

I would try to plug directly into the fiber modem and see what speeds you get. Sometime it is tricky to do this depending on how the ISP does their IP allocation. On cable modems you must power cycle the modem
 
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SteveyFreaq

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The speeds from the modem are not the issue as I get 250Mbps down on WiFi it's purely the speeds getting to my computer through the ethernet cable.
 
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