Do Ethernet cables have various speeds?

[Sadtrial]

Hello, I have a brand new home built PC for moderate gaming, and while I'm pleased with it's gaming performance I am not pleased with it's connection speeds. Ex: download/upload. With this said, I do think it is appropriate to list my motherboard manufacture and model since I am using a LAN connection and not a Wireless connection.
It's a ASRock Z77 extreme 4 board advertising it's 5x faster LAN speed. (I know that is an exaggeration and it's not going to be 5 times faster in certain aspects because the internet speed I pay for also falls into play). So the internet I pay for is by the cable company Insight and as far as I know (unless they have screwed up) my speed is 20meg as they advertise. (I'm not sure how many mbps that is but yeah.) But on that note I don't think the issue is the internet provider, because I have my laptop here with me and when I test the speed on my laptop on www.speedtest.net I get around 12 mbps download. When I do this on my home built PC i get around 5-6 mbps download. So I'm wondering if different Ethernet cables can have different download/upload speeds, or could i have a bad board? The cable I'm using right now is at least 2 years old or more. I had bought it when I bought an xbox 360 to play on Live and I have now adopted it for my PC use. Any ideas/answers on this would be much appreciated!

 

[bill001g]

So try another cable it will cost you less than $5. There is a very slim change it is physically damaged. (highly unlikely)

Pretty much any cable you have will be faster than your internet. More than likely you have a cable that can go to 1G. Your PC has 1G port but you didn't specify the router type. Even if it could only do 100m it is still faster than the 20m.

It is most likely some software or driver setting in your PC that is causing it to be slower than your laptop.

 

[Sadtrial]

So try another cable it will cost you less than $5. There is a very slim change it is physically damaged. (highly unlikely)

Pretty much any cable you have will be faster than your internet. More than likely you have a cable that can go to 1G. Your PC has 1G port but you didn't specify the router type. Even if it could only do 100m it is still faster than the 20m.

It is most likely some software or driver setting in your PC that is causing it to be slower than your laptop.

I just tested it with another cable that i have and I was still getting around the same mark at 5-6mbps download. I also didn't think to list the router because if that was the issue, then why am i getting higher on my laptop? If it was the router, then wouldn't the download speed on my laptop be limited to 5-6 mbps also?

Where in my settings do you think the setting in my speed would be located? I will try to reinstall MB drivers and see if that works.


My router is a Belkin G series wireless router
Model number: F5D7234-4-BC v1

My modem is a ARRIS
Model number: CM550A

 

[bill001g]

If you have connected your laptop with a cable. You best test would of course to use exactly the same cable.

Both your modem and your router can only go to 100m but it is still faster than 5m. And as you point out your laptop works better so it is unlikely these devices.

If you look in the setting for the network adapter it should tell you what speed it running. Your router may also tell you.

More than likely you will find it is running 100 full duplex. The part that may cause issues is if it somehow is running half duplex. This is all auto negotiated and works most the time.

Once you get deep into the motherboard settings you may be better off asking this question on those forums,

 

[Sadtrial]

If you have connected your laptop with a cable. You best test would of course to use exactly the same cable.

Both your modem and your router can only go to 100m but it is still faster than 5m. And as you point out your laptop works better so it is unlikely these devices.

If you look in the setting for the network adapter it should tell you what speed it running. Your router may also tell you.

More than likely you will find it is running 100 full duplex. The part that may cause issues is if it somehow is running half duplex. This is all auto negotiated and works most the time.

Once you get deep into the motherboard settings you may be better off asking this question on those forums,

I also have cfos on this computer because it came with the mother board. http://www.cfos.de/en/cfosspeed/documentation/status.htm?reg-6.61.1880-asrock
Idk if there's any settings with that that could be causing the problem.
You lost me at 100 duplex and half duplex.
also my connection speed in Local Area Connection Status is 100.0 Mbps