Posted May 3, 2021 Hello there! I have a freaking ton of ethernet cables at home for the amount of devices that actually use one, so I tried different cables for my PC. I tried it with an ethernet cable that has 4 pins (1-white, 2-orange/white, 3-green/white and 6-green/white) with a result of 50Mbit/s download and 20Mbit/s upload (I took 5 attempts with each cable and made sure no other devices use internet from my router at the time of test). After that, I changed the cable to a cable with 8 pins (just the standart 8 pin layout) and got 30Mbit/s download and 20Mbit/s upload which really confused me. I have more pins but slower download and the same upload? So I tried 3 other calbes, 5 tests each and all cables with 4 pins showed the same result and all cables with 8 pins showed the same result. The ping was nearly always the same, around 22ms. So my question is: Does the number of pins and the pin layout really matter for the speed? Why was tge 8 pin slower in download but the same speed in upload as the 4 pin? And also, some of my cables have a plastic protection around the pins, others, more expensive ones, have metal. Does that change anything other than durability? Thanks in advance and sorry for the very long text. But now, fellow gamers, that was it for me. Please keep in mind, that this is just my personal opionion and I am no expert. Your system shall be cooled forever, see you next time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted May 3, 2021 What devices are you connecting? 100mpbs only requires 4 pins while 1gbps requires 8, so if either device (or both) only supports up to 100mbps, the additional 4 pins in the other cables won’t increase your bandwidth. As for the metal vs plastic connectors, the metal ones are probably grounded cables, though I think the port the cable is being connected to must also be correctly grounded for it to be effective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted May 3, 2021 Author Just now, The_russian said: What devices are you connecting? 100mpbs only requires 4 pins while 1gbps requires 8, so if either device (or both) only supports up to 100mbps, the additional 4 pins in the other cables won’t increase your bandwidth. As for the metal vs plastic connectors, the metal ones are probably grounded cables, though I think the port the cable is being connected to must also be correctly grounded for it to be effective. I was connecting my router (which does support at least 100Mbit if I use my Desktop PC) with this: TP-Link TL-PA4010P KIT which support up to 600Mbit (This is one of those ethernet to wall "boxes" so you can use ethernet in a room without ethernet connectors in the wall) and in another room I connected the "wall box however you may call these" with my laptop. If I use router directly to my Desktop PC I get exactly 100Mbit. I should mention that I always used the same number of pins to connect the router with the wall box and the wall box with the laptop. I hope that was somehow understandable, english is not my first language... But now, fellow gamers, that was it for me. Please keep in mind, that this is just my personal opionion and I am no expert. Your system shall be cooled forever, see you next time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted May 3, 2021 Author 22 minutes ago, The_russian said: What devices are you connecting? 100mpbs only requires 4 pins while 1gbps requires 8, so if either device (or both) only supports up to 100mbps, the additional 4 pins in the other cables won’t increase your bandwidth. As for the metal vs plastic connectors, the metal ones are probably grounded cables, though I think the port the cable is being connected to must also be correctly grounded for it to be effective. I just looked at my "wall box" and this one only has 4 pins, which should limit the speed to 100Mbit. That clears some things up but still doesn't explain why the 8 pin is slowe (at least it does not explain it to me since I don't know a lot about this topic). But now, fellow gamers, that was it for me. Please keep in mind, that this is just my personal opionion and I am no expert. Your system shall be cooled forever, see you next time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted May 3, 2021 17 minutes ago, JohanKjeldahl7 said: I was connecting my router (which does support at least 100Mbit if I use my Desktop PC) with this: TP-Link TL-PA4010P KIT which support up to 600Mbit (This is one of those ethernet to wall "boxes" so you can use ethernet in a room without ethernet connectors in the wall) and in another room I connected the "wall box however you may call these" with my laptop. That TP-Link powerline adapter only has a 10/100mbps Ethernet port, so you won’t get a connection any faster than 100mpbs when using it. The 600mbps speed they claim is borderline false advertising, how I understand it is if they had put a gigabit port in the adapter, then it would be capable of 600mbps in the best of conditions, but since they only put a 10/100mbps port in it, 100mbps will be the fastest you will get. Since the adapter only supports 100mbps, regardless of if you use a 4 pin or 8 pin Ethernet cable, the max bandwidth will be 100mbps. 1 minute ago, JohanKjeldahl7 said: That clears some things up but still doesn't explain why the 8 pin is slowe Yeah the 8 pin cable should not be slower, it could be a lower quality cable or just coincidence that the speed dropped when you switched cables, but theoretically you shouldn’t be getting slower speeds with the different cables. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted May 3, 2021 Author 9 minutes ago, The_russian said: borderline false advertising Yup that has to be false advertising. They "hid" the actual speed in the description on amazon and wrote 600Mbit into the title... Thanks TP-Link (stil very happy with the product since 50Mbit is way more than enough for me and my provider doesn't even support 600Mbit in my town). 9 minutes ago, The_russian said: could be a lower quality cable That could be very true. The 8 pin cables I tried are all way older than the 4 pin cable and have been in multiple walls. Perhaps they just did not age well/got a little damaged while pulling them out of walls etc. From what I heard ethernet cables are not the most durable ones and quite fragile in most cases. Thank you very much for your help! I know a lot more about ethernet cables now! But now, fellow gamers, that was it for me. Please keep in mind, that this is just my personal opionion and I am no expert. Your system shall be cooled forever, see you next time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted May 4, 2021 13 hours ago, JohanKjeldahl7 said: Yup that has to be false advertising. They "hid" the actual speed in the description on amazon and wrote 600Mbit into the title... Thanks TP-Link (stil very happy with the product since 50Mbit is way more than enough for me and my provider doesn't even support 600Mbit in my town). The 600 Mbps is the speed between the power line adapters. Thats how all adapters are advertised. You have to look closely at what the port is rated for in terms of speed. It doesnt matter anyway, because Power Line adapters probably couldn't get close to gigabit speeds. I would say the 50 Mbps is pretty damn good for a power line adapter. I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted May 4, 2021 Author 2 hours ago, Donut417 said: The 600 Mbps is the speed between the power line adapters. Thats how all adapters are advertised. You have to look closely at what the port is rated for in terms of speed. It doesnt matter anyway, because Power Line adapters probably couldn't get close to gigabit speeds. I would say the 50 Mbps is pretty damn good for a power line adapter. Oh that makes sense. And I agree - 50Mbit is pretty good for a power line adapter, I am very happy with it. Thanks for the extra info! But now, fellow gamers, that was it for me. Please keep in mind, that this is just my personal opionion and I am no expert. Your system shall be cooled forever, see you next time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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