Switch doesn't deliver high speeds

[HeLiOn]

Hello.

I bought a switch to link a TV and a PC that are on the same room, to my home router.
The switch is a TP-Link TL-SG105E and according to the specs, it should be able to handle speeds up to 1000 Mbps.
My ISP only gives me 500 Mbps but it should be more than enough for streaming 4K movies towards a Smart TV. 

The switch seems to limit the output speeds.
It has a pair of LEDs on each of its 5 ports indicating the transfer speeds. Green indicates 1000 Mbps and yellow indicates 10/100 Mbps.
The port used for the router connection (port 1) is on green, while the ports used for the TV and PC are on yellow. This state is constant. 

The PC in question is the secondary one. My main rig is connected directly to the router, and it even passes 500 Mbps on some occasions.
However, when I do a speed test through the switch using the secondary PC, it looks like the speed is capped at 10 Mbps for some reason.

I considered the cables to be an issue, but it's not the case. The cables I have mounted on the walls, are CAT5, and the ones connecting these devices to the switch are CAT6. They're in perfect condition.
I'm thinking that the switch has incorrect settings, but I honestly don't know what to look for here.

[AbydosOne]

3 minutes ago, HeLiOn said:

I'm thinking that the switch has incorrect settings

Those switches are basically dumb boxes; there's no settings to set.

 

3 minutes ago, HeLiOn said:

it looks like the speed is capped at 10 Mbps for some reason

Have you tried another device on that cable?

[Falcon1986]

3 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

Those switches are basically dumb boxes; there's no settings to set.

 

Have you tried another device on that cable?

No it isn't. It's a smart switch. Can be configured in software.

 

@HeLiOn - Is that CAT5 or CAT5e? Try a different cable between the switch and the PC. Also, what speed/duplex are the ports set to in the administration interface?

[AbydosOne]

3 minutes ago, Falcon1986 said:

No it isn't. It's a smart switch. Can be configured in software.

I stand corrected, thanks.

[HeLiOn]

1 hour ago, Falcon1986 said:

 

@HeLiOn - Is that CAT5 or CAT5e? Try a different cable between the switch and the PC. Also, what speed/duplex are the ports set to in the administration interface?

Good question. The apartment wiring actually has CAT5e, since it does support 1Gbps speeds. My bad there, I forgot about this particular differentiation.

 

1 hour ago, Falcon1986 said:

Try a different cable between the switch and the PC.

Already tried multiple cables. The last particular cable is one I previously used between the router and the TV. Works flawlessly.
I even took a picture of the switch with that cable plugged in. It's a gigabit speed cable, and the led is still yellow.

 

 

1 hour ago, Falcon1986 said:

Also, what speed/duplex are the ports set to in the administration interface?

You'll have to be more specific with that one. My port setting panel looks like this, at the moment:
With the cable plugged as they are in the picture above.

Edit:

I can now confirm clearly that the speed is actually limited to 10. I went to the monitoring page:

 

 

I got rid of one unused cable and did a cable test:
The cables don't seem to have issues.

 

[Falcon1986]

@HeLiOn

 

Check the PC's network adapter properties for the detected link speed and see if you can force 1000Mbps full duplex. Also, update the LAN/network drivers.

 

Are you sure the TV's ethernet port is rated at 1000Mbps and not 10/100Mbps?

[Jarsky]

3 hours ago, HeLiOn said:

It has a pair of LEDs on each of its 5 ports indicating the transfer speeds.

Those lights dont indicate transfer speed, they indicate connect rate.

3 hours ago, HeLiOn said:

Green indicates 1000 Mbps and yellow indicates 10/100 Mbps.
The port used for the router connection (port 1) is on green, while the ports used for the TV and PC are on yellow. This state is constant. 

Well yeah theres your problem, theyre only linking at 10/100. 

Most TV's only have 10/100 ports on them (as most only have 2.4ghz wifi as well), so check the specifications for your TV, you might find its normal if it's connected at 100Mb.

Your PC being connected at 10/100....I assume this is a Gigabit capable nic from the last 10years+. Go into Device Manager, go into Properties on your network adapter and check the Duplex settings. Make sure its set to 10/100/1000. If it is, try changing it manually to 1000 and see what happens. Also make sure its on Full Duplex. 

[HeLiOn]

 

10 minutes ago, Jarsky said:

Your PC being connected at 10/100....I assume this is a Gigabit capable nic from the last 10years+. Go into Device Manager, go into Properties on your network adapter and check the Duplex settings. Make sure its set to 10/100/1000. If it is, try changing it manually to 1000 and see what happens. Also make sure its on Full Duplex. 

Actually the PC is older and its adapter doesn't support more than 100Mbps speed. Still, I don't actually require those speeds for the PC.
The duplex was set to auto, and I manually configured it to 100 full. The test results haven't changed, and the monitor panel shows the same connect rates.

26 minutes ago, Jarsky said:

Most TV's only have 10/100 ports on them (as most only have 2.4ghz wifi as well), so check the specifications for your TV, you might find its normal if it's connected at 100Mb.

My TV is connected to the 5 GHz Network. I can't find the actual specs for its network adapter, but I'll assume it's 100Mb, since 4K content doesn't require more than 30 Mbps
If you can find more info, my TV is an LG E9 55.

The wireless connection runs just fine. It's just that I'd rather avoid putting too much wear on the router's wireless module.

[HeLiOn]

OK, I just brought up my laptop to test its connection. I used the cable that was connecting the TV to the switch, and I had a green led with it. 1000 Mpbs connection rate, no issues.

But if I use that same cable for the TV, I get a 10 Mbps connection rate. That's not enough for the intended purposes, cause I get stuck in buffering, on both Netflix and my home Plex server.
 

I have tested 3 different cables and got the same results.
You'd think the PC doesn't take more the 10 Mbps, but if I connect it directly to the router, movie streaming works flawlessly.

What am I missing here?

[Falcon1986]

2 hours ago, HeLiOn said:

OK, I just brought up my laptop to test its connection. I used the cable that was connecting the TV to the switch, and I had a green led with it. 1000 Mpbs connection rate, no issues.

But if I use that same cable for the TV, I get a 10 Mbps connection rate. That's not enough for the intended purposes, cause I get stuck in buffering, on both Netflix and my home Plex server.
 

I have tested 3 different cables and got the same results.
You'd think the PC doesn't take more the 10 Mbps, but if I connect it directly to the router, movie streaming works flawlessly.

What am I missing here?

I guess the TV’s ethernet port isn’t negotiating the link at the 100Mbps speed. Is there any firmware update online for the TV?

[HeLiOn]

There isn't one. But how come it manages to take 100 Mbps with the router directly?

[PineyCreek]

10/half sounds like an auto-negotiation failure to me assuming a good cable and cable connection.

[HeLiOn]

6 hours ago, PineyCreek said:

10/half sounds like an auto-negotiation failure to me assuming a good cable and cable connection.

After further testing, I came to the conclusion that the switch was being weird. 
I had to manually set the connection to 100 MF on the switch for TV to negotiate properly, but even after that, the download remained below 10 Mbps, while upload reached around 80 Mbps.
Eventually, I decided to reset the switch to its factory settings. After setting it up again, all the devices, including the TV negotiated properly.

Now the TV seems to get the intended speeds. Both Plex and Netflix are working fine.

And after upgrading its Ethernet drivers, the secondary PC also reaches the desired speeds.

So... problems solved, I guess.