Am not smart, please send help

[RealOatmeal]

I'm doing some research into improving the family internet connection and system overall, and its coming to my attention that I don't know jack. I've managed to find the "Network and Sharing Center," which displays that my internet speed is at a constant 100.0 Mbps. I haven't seen any change in this number at all, but I haven't watched it either. I am using a Linksys router, an e1200 with a cap of 300 Mbps. I am not sure what the family ISP should be providing, since we use Charter (so any online documentation is either inaccessible or clearly mistyped, such as the site where they list all available speeds at the same price) and don't really have great documentation of our technology (I will be checking on this the day after this post, and will edit once I find out). The PC has old (2009) drivers on it, but it also has a gigiabit ethernet port. So:

 

1) If my ISP is providing me with a 100 Mbps plan, would I be able to see the speed flickering in the window available from the "Network and Sharing Center" window? Obviously, this would only be within a few Mb, maybe 95-105 for this particular connection, but would the information window display that information in realtime?

 

2) The home computer is very old, a Gateway from 2009. The latest driver is from 2009 (November, I think), so could that be limiting internet speeds?

 

3) Is it possible the modem is limiting the available internet speeds? We got a new one from our ISP just last year, but I am a little scared to plug the computer directly into it, as I myself couldn't exactly pay for the system.

 

4) Is there a setting on my router that could be limiting the internet speeds? The router is a Linksys e1200, with a cap of 300 Mbps, but I have only seen 100.0 Mbps as a speed in the "Network and Sharing Center" panel. All of my online tests have resulted in about 70 Mbps downloading speeds, or about 80 when the computer is the only connected device.

 

Thank you for any info you may have.

[TwilightRavens]

18 minutes ago, RealOatmeal said:

I'm doing some research into improving the family internet connection and system overall, and its coming to my attention that I don't know jack. I've managed to find the "Network and Sharing Center," which displays that my internet speed is at a constant 100.0 Mbps. I haven't seen any change in this number at all, but I haven't watched it either. I am using a Linksys router, an e1200 with a cap of 300 Mbps. I am not sure what the family ISP should be providing, since we use Charter (so any online documentation is either inaccessible or clearly mistyped, such as the site where they list all available speeds at the same price) and don't really have great documentation of our technology (I will be checking on this the day after this post, and will edit once I find out). The PC has old (2009) drivers on it, but it also has a gigiabit ethernet port. So:

 

1) If my ISP is providing me with a 100 Mbps plan, would I be able to see the speed flickering in the window available from the "Network and Sharing Center" window? Obviously, this would only be within a few Mb, maybe 95-105 for this particular connection, but would the information window display that information in realtime?

 

2) The home computer is very old, a Gateway from 2009. The latest driver is from 2009 (November, I think), so could that be limiting internet speeds?

 

3) Is it possible the modem is limiting the available internet speeds? We got a new one from our ISP just last year, but I am a little scared to plug the computer directly into it, as I myself couldn't exactly pay for the system.

 

4) Is there a setting on my router that could be limiting the internet speeds? The router is a Linksys e1200, with a cap of 300 Mbps, but I have only seen 100.0 Mbps as a speed in the "Network and Sharing Center" panel. All of my online tests have resulted in about 70 Mbps downloading speeds, or about 80 when the computer is the only connected device.

 

Thank you for any info you may have.

If the max you see is 100 mbps then that means you have a 100 megabit plan which equates to about 10-12 megabytes per second, meaning no matter if you have a gigabit capable card or not you won’t see much over 100 megabit.

[Windows7ge]

1. No. What your seeing is the link speed between the Ethernet port and the switch. This isn't the speed you're paying for from your ISP.
2. If it's still running something like Windows XP or Vista then the system overall would be slower regardless of your ISP plan.
3. If the modem was provided by the ISP you shouldn't have to worry about if it's capable of supplying the bandwidth you're paying for.
4. That router only has 10/100mbps ports. You would need a router with 10/100/1000mbps ports to utilize a 1Gbit connection.

[The_russian]

1) The 100Mpbs that you see in Windows Network and Sharing Center isn't your internet speed, it is the speed of the interface. So if you have a Gigabit port, it should say 1Gbps. Since it says 100mpbs, either your computer or whatever it is connected to (probably the router) doesn't support gigabit. 

 

2) It's possible, you should probably update them anyway.

 

3) Yes, if the modem has a 100mbps port instead of a 1gbps port and you pay for more than 100mbps, then the modem will be the bottleneck.

 

4) Also yes, but there is more likely some part of the link that doesn't support gigabit, that's assuming you pay for greater than a 100mpbs connection and would benefit from it. 

[Windows7ge]

1 minute ago, TwilightRavens said:

If the max you see is 100 mbps then that means you have a 100 megabit plan which equates to about 20-25 megabytes per second, meaning no matter if you have a gigabit capable card or not you won’t see much over 100 megabit.

Sorry but:

 

100mbps ≠ 20~25MB/s

100mbps = 12.5MB/s (max theoretical, not counting overhead)

 

That and they're talking about the link between the computer and the router. That's not their ISP plan.

[TwilightRavens]

3 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Sorry but:

 

100mbps ≠ 20~25MB/s

100mbps = 12.5MB/s (max theoretical, not counting overhead)

 

That and they're talking about the link between the computer and the router. That's not their ISP plan.

My bad i mathed wrong, i was calculating 200 mbit in my head for some reason.

[Windows7ge]

1 minute ago, TwilightRavens said:

My bad i mathed wrong, i was calculating to 200 mbit.

Understandable mistake. I do that multiple times daily.

[Donut417]

22 hours ago, RealOatmeal said:

1) If my ISP is providing me with a 100 Mbps plan, would I be able to see the speed flickering in the window available from the "Network and Sharing Center" window? Obviously, this would only be within a few Mb, maybe 95-105 for this particular connection, but would the information window display that information in realtime?

No. Networking equipment establishes a link speed according to the devices they are connected to. Currently 10 Mbps, 100Mbps, 1 Gbps, 2.5 Gbps, 5Gbps and 10Gbps are the official speeds that Ethernet supports. THAT BEING SAID, Your card will have a speed rating. Looking at above Im going to guess 100 Mbps. That means the router and computer should negotiate a 100 Mbps link between each other. As it will establish the link speed according to the slowest device. Keep in mind your router creates a separate private network for your home AND shares the 1 IPv4 IP address charter supplies you between all your devices. Local network speed is part of it, then there is what internet speed you pay for. Keep in mind that if the computer only have a 100 Mbps network card it will ONLY get 100 Mbps max from the ISP. Anything above 100 Mbps requires a faster card. 

 

22 hours ago, RealOatmeal said:

2) The home computer is very old, a Gateway from 2009. The latest driver is from 2009 (November, I think), so could that be limiting internet speeds?

 

Could be thats its a slower network card. Keep in mind that network speeds also vary due to other things. Like the waiting on the hard disk to write data. So speeds will bounce around. 

 

22 hours ago, RealOatmeal said:

3) Is it possible the modem is limiting the available internet speeds? We got a new one from our ISP just last year, but I am a little scared to plug the computer directly into it, as I myself couldn't exactly pay for the system.

If I had to bet on a device causing a speed issue it could be the router. Though if you have a half way decent router its probably fine. While Docsis cable modems are rated for select speeds, Charter to my understanding uses 32 channel Docsis 3.0 and 3.1 modems, and should have NO issues with lower speed tiers. Though if you connect your modem directly to your computer and notice no speed issues, then that means its the router. 

 

22 hours ago, RealOatmeal said:

4) Is there a setting on my router that could be limiting the internet speeds? The router is a Linksys e1200, with a cap of 300 Mbps, but I have only seen 100.0 Mbps as a speed in the "Network and Sharing Center" panel. All of my online tests have resulted in about 70 Mbps downloading speeds, or about 80 when the computer is the only connected device.

It all comes down to what you pay for. ALSO keep in mind we are currently experiencing the 5th end of the world event I have seen in my life time. The way Coax internet tends to work is Fiber to the node. There could be 100-300 people connected to your node. They only supply X amount of bandwidth per node. So during heavy usage everyone speeds tank. Im with Comcast which is similar service, and I have even noticed some slow downs. Comcast is much better than Charter in regards to its network, but with the heavy usage you will have to expect issues. There are other things that can cause speed issues, but unless your getting disconnects from the internet then I doubt its any of those things. 

 

 

I took a look at your router. I would start there with upgrades. Single bands N routers are OLD, plus like others said you only have 10/100 Mbps ports, meaning any speeds over 100 Mbps provided by Charter would not be able to be used. You should be able to pick up a decent wireless AC router for maybe $80, maybe cheaper if you find one on sale. I would suggest looking at TP Link for a budget router.