LAN Port Speed Issues

[Crave]

Hello everyone.

 

Specifications of a PC:

MSI B450i Gaming Plus AC with 1.2.0.6c AGESA BIOS.

AMD Ryzen 1700X, OC-ed and undervolted to 3.7 GHz, 1.32 V

MSI Armor MK2 RX 580 8 GB, undervolted from 950 to 900 mV on VRAM and -50 mV on every state, except the first and last one.

32 GB (2x16) G.Skill Ripjaws V 3200 MHz CAS 14

HP EX920 M.2 NVMe SSD 512 GB

Seagate FireCuda 2.5 SSHD 5400 RPM 2 TB

Silverstone SF800-LTI SFX-L

Bitfenix Portal case

2 x 80 mm 4 pin Noctua fans

2 x 92 mm 4 pin Noctua fans

1 x 120 mm 4 pin Noctua industrial fan

Noctua fan controller

Noctua NH-U9S

 

Specifications of a network's setup:

TP-Link A8

TP-Link RE550

Ugreen Cat7 flat cable

 

Last week, when I came back home, I noticed that websites opened slower than usual. After running a quick speed test and Steam downloads, I saw that the download/upload speeds dropped from 100 Mbps to 0.20-0.35 Mbps. When I run same tests through Wi-Fi connection, the download/upload speed was 90-95 Mbps. Also, whenever I use the cable, somehow the Wi-Fi connection gives same 0.20-0.50 Mbps speed to any device, which is connected to the network.

 

For a couple of days, I did the following things to try to fix the issue:

 

Contact ISP and let them thoroughly check their side. Everything is fine.

Downgrade the router's firmware from  1.11.30 to 1.11.0. No change.

Reset the router's settings. No change.

Reinstalled all drivers/let Windows install its own drivers/use without drivers. No change.

Disable Large Send Offload v2 on IPv4 and v6, put 100 Mbps full duplex on Speed & Duplex. No change.

Change cable. No change.

Connect cable to another device and check speed on every port. Everything works fine.

Reset network. No change.

Check for corrupted files in a system. No change.

Delete anything that was installed before the disaster. After I deleted 28.0.3 version of OBS and restarted the PC, the Lan speed returned. After some time has passed, the speed has dropped again.

Check Event Viewer. There were a lot of informational records and an error, called DHCPNACK. I don't remember the exact error, but It said something about IP lease.

 

At this point, I have two theories:

Maybe there is something wrong with a system and I need to reinstall it. Or something happened while I was not home and it damaged either the LAN port or the chip.

 

As an additional information. A month ago I updated the BIOS and changed OS Configuration from CSM to UEFI. Everything worked fine till the last week.

[Robchil]

could have been a powerspike, but likely not as it would have taken down the port in the router/switch as well, but they sometimes survive. 

i would just reinstall windows without using more time on troubleshooting, if it still is a problem after reinstall it might be the onboard NIC that is fried. And use Wifi that is working as you say.

i've seen my share of nic's getting burned out for no reason, and i've seen my share of windows installations that borks the nic's too. ... and seriously.. reinstall windows once a year minimum, as it's so much junk left from patching and update that often don't work.. 

 

as for the time span you say you updated bios and changed settings, there settings in routers and on servers that takes weeks to see the effects of it. most network settings has a tombstone timer,  dhcp dns, windows accounts even, computer accounts. ... but it all takes time to troubleshoot.. most of that should be reset by the install as well. and it's down to the hardware if it's faulty or not. And a much faster way to check it. 

 

 

[manikyath]

28 minutes ago, Crave said:

 

Ugreen Cat7 flat cable

from the owner of a few douzen flat cables: if you have any issues, suspect the flat cable.

[Heats with Nvidia]

I had the same problem a few weeks ago and it was a setting that can only be changed through the command line, that i never touched before, that windows decided to change on its own.

The best way to check this, is, take a thumbdrive and install a bootable linux on it. If you can connect to the network wit that with full speed, its a software issue, if not, its most liekely a hardware issue.

[Crave]

30 minutes ago, Robchil said:

could have been a powerspike, but likely not as it would have taken down the port in the router/switch as well, but they sometimes survive. 

i would just reinstall windows without using more time on troubleshooting, if it still is a problem after reinstall it might be the onboard NIC that is fried. And use Wifi that is working as you say.

i've seen my share of nic's getting burned out for no reason, and i've seen my share of windows installations that borks the nic's too. ... and seriously.. reinstall windows once a year minimum, as it's so much junk left from patching and update that often don't work.. 

 

as for the time span you say you updated bios and changed settings, there settings in routers and on servers that takes weeks to see the effects of it. most network settings has a tombstone timer,  dhcp dns, windows accounts even, computer accounts. ... but it all takes time to troubleshoot.. most of that should be reset by the install as well. and it's down to the hardware if it's faulty or not. And a much faster way to check it. 

 

 

I forgot to mention that I reinstalled Windows several times a month ago. As I was trying to reinstall Windows from Legacy to UEFI, I had problems with MSI's butchered BIOS, which supports the Ryzen's all AM4 line of CPUs. UEFI mode just didn't want to work on 2020 BIOS and the on the latest version with 1.2.0.7 AGESA.

 

I guess it won't hurt to try (hopefully) the last fresh reinstall.

[Crave]

25 minutes ago, manikyath said:

from the owner of a few douzen flat cables: if you have any issues, suspect the flat cable.

To my surprise, this 6 meters Ugreen flat cable works fine since 2010. Never had any kind of issue with connection or speed, but maybe it gives more latency.

[Crave]

22 minutes ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

I had the same problem a few weeks ago and it was a setting that can only be changed through the command line, that i never touched before, that windows decided to change on its own.

The best way to check this, is, take a thumbdrive and install a bootable linux on it. If you can connect to the network wit that with full speed, its a software issue, if not, its most liekely a hardware issue.

Oh, that's a really good idea.

I don't know why, but I forgot that there is a bootable OS thing.

 

Thanks for the information.

[Heats with Nvidia]

1 hour ago, Crave said:

Thanks for the information.

I hope it helps.

[SamClan]

press start type cmd



type in the new window

ping google.de -t

anything above 100ms or not reached is not accaptable.
 

 

open cmd another time 

now you have to ping your router 

should be something like
ping fritz.box -t
ping 192.168.0.1 -t
ping 192.168.178.1 -t


what else?
go in your command prompt i believe the english name is that. 
go into your network and check your speed

2 hours ago, Crave said:

LAN port or the chip

check the speeds you have. picture above

[Crave]

3 hours ago, SamClan said:

press start type cmd



type in the new window

ping google.de -t

anything above 100ms or not reached is not accaptable.
 

 

open cmd another time 

now you have to ping your router 

should be something like
ping fritz.box -t
ping 192.168.0.1 -t
ping 192.168.178.1 -t


what else?
go in your command prompt i believe the english name is that. 
go into your network and check your speed

check the speeds you have. picture above

I have done everything you advised me.

 

The screenshots are attached to the reply.

 

When I saw results with a lot of timed out requests, I wanted to check if flushing DNS and reseting TCP/IP will help to solve the issue. After the restart, I was greeted with an auto repair diagnostics windows and then with a message that Windows failed to repair corrupted files. From this experience, I think that I won't even bother with a bootable OS and just fresh install Windows to not only fix the Ethernet issue, but also to fix whatever is broken inside system32 files.

 

[SamClan]

what we see here, 

26 minutes ago, Crave said:

 

 

what we see here is a bad connection from pc to router. 

 

this should be less or equal 1. 

 

 

why is your speed only 100 Mbps????

your router is capable of 

 

your motherboard has 1x Gb LAN (Realtek RTL8111H)

 

7 hours ago, Crave said:

Ugreen Cat7 flat cable

you used this cable with another pc? while this pc wifi was off?
Flat cables are known to get broken easy. 

 

 

 

[Crave]

55 minutes ago, SamClan said:

what we see here, 

what we see here is a bad connection from pc to router. 

 

this should be less or equal 1. 

 

 

why is your speed only 100 Mbps????

your router is capable of 

 

your motherboard has 1x Gb LAN (Realtek RTL8111H)

 

you used this cable with another pc? while this pc wifi was off?
Flat cables are known to get broken easy. 

 

 

 

Where I live, maximum speed is 100 Mbps. The only one who gets a Gigabit speed is either some corporation or government.

 

I purchased router and repeater for a more powerful range,  5 GHz channel and a cheap solution to a mesh network. I live in an apartment with lots of neighbours and let's just say that if you look at the Wi-Fi analyzer's channel graph, it looks like a battle royale. Fortunately, absolutely nobody uses 5 or 6 GHz channels, so I get no interference at all.

 

I understand that for network extension, the ideal scenario is to buy an access point and run a CAT6e cable from router to it, but nobody gives me the consent to drill some holes.

 

I used this cable since 2010 and it seems to still work without any problems. I checked the speed on an old Toshiba NB520-10U netbook with it. Both wired and wireless connection gave me 33-35 Mbps speed for download/upload, even though it is capable of 100 Mbps speed. I guess, it is one of the features of Xubuntu. Even when I'm right in front of the router with a laptop, it still shows me that the wireless range is at 70%.

 

The Wi-Fi connection on a PC works even when a cable is connected to another device. The magic happens only when I connect the cable to the PC.

[SamClan]

10 hours ago, Crave said:

Where I live, maximum speed is 100 Mbps. The only one who gets a Gigabit speed is either some corporation or government.

you missunderstood something, this speed is the maximum speed you could have. 

 

both your devices connected to each other could reach that speed. COULD. 

 

 

 

Cat7 is up to 100  times faster then your 100 Mbps it is 10000 Mbps.

 

10 hours ago, Crave said:

even though it is capable of 100 Mbps speed.

this is why I thougt something is damaged. 

 

 

 

19 hours ago, Crave said:

Reinstalled all drivers/let Windows install its own drivers/use without drivers. No change.

where did you got those drivers?`well the network driver? because if you got them from your motherboard manufactor often those are OLD very old and you will find newer versions on the lan chip manufactor

[Crave]

2 hours ago, SamClan said:

you missunderstood something, this speed is the maximum speed you could have. 

 

both your devices connected to each other could reach that speed. COULD. 

 

 

 

Cat7 is up to 100  times faster then your 100 Mbps it is 10000 Mbps.

 

this is why I thougt something is damaged. 

 

 

 

where did you got those drivers?`well the network driver? because if you got them from your motherboard manufactor often those are OLD very old and you will find newer versions on the lan chip manufactor

I get drivers for everything only from a motherboard manufacturer. Chipset, graphics card, SSD/HDD firmware and etc. are downloaded from their reputable manufacturers.

 

I know that you can also get drivers for Wi-Fi/Bluetooth cards, LAN ports and audio stuff from chip manufacturers, but there is also an optimization, which is done by motherboard manufacturers in order for the driver to work more stable with the specific motherboard model. Of course, there are days where manufacturers post faulty drivers, which make everything even worst than before and there is nothing you can do, except reroll to a stable version, and wait for a new stable update.

 

Yesterday, when my PC was in idle state, I got two-three BSODs with some corrupted system32 files, so I am 100% sure that this network problem is connected to the whole system and not just on drivers or router alone.

 

Unfortunately, since I am busy with work right now, I don't have free time to back up and reinstall the whole thing yet. I hope it can be done on Sunday, so I can post an update.

[SamClan]

New plan it is your hdd or SSD

 

check your smart. But normally if those are the culprits your boot times are long and you get some other very noticeable and visible problems

 

I would go with a new motherboard after making sure HDDs SSD is working fine 

[Robchil]

100mbit only uses 2 pairs in an 4 pair cable, if one or two of the pairs is broken, it's possible the last two has an issue giving up giving your bad connection, if it works with another computer, clean your network port, check it if the contacts looks straight, if available test a pcie nic or USB nic. 

[Crave]

4 hours ago, Robchil said:

100mbit only uses 2 pairs in an 4 pair cable, if one or two of the pairs is broken, it's possible the last two has an issue giving up giving your bad connection, if it works with another computer, clean your network port, check it if the contacts looks straight, if available test a pcie nic or USB nic. 

Forgot to mention that I have also checked and cleaned both Ethernet port and cable with ear picks, coated in 99% isopropyl alcohol. Still nothing.

 

I already checked and got the results from PCIE NIC. It seems that the port and drivers work fine, but I get random response time outs from time to time, so it seems like something is wrong with the whole system.

 

Yesterday, I had time, so I checked if turning off Windows 10 telemetry somehow screws the LAN port. Turned on telemetry gave no results to my issue.

[Crave]

9 hours ago, SamClan said:

New plan it is your hdd or SSD

 

check your smart. But normally if those are the culprits your boot times are long and you get some other very noticeable and visible problems

 

I would go with a new motherboard after making sure HDDs SSD is working fine 

HWinfo gives no errors to NVMe SSD. I have run SSD benchmarks on it and checked speeds with CrystalDiskInfo. Everything is good.

 

Unfortunately, I can't change the motherboard right now, so I am stuck with MSI B450I for the time being.

[Kid.Lazer]

Have you tried another cable yet? It sounds like you have some other system instabilities to deal with, but your system is also clearly negotiating a slower speed with your router than the 1000mbps it should be.

[Crave]

Update:

 

I reinstalled Windows yesterday. The system works almost stable (Radeon drivers sometimes cause BSOD), but the Ethernet port still misbehaves.

 

I noticed that there may be some changes. Whenever I run speed test with a cable, it gives me 0.20-1 Mbps download speed and 60-90 upload speed. It seems that something is wrong only with download speed, while the upload speed seems fine. Also, when I change cable to the one, which comes inside with a router, the system registers it way faster than the flat cable. It shows me that my speed is 1 Gbps, both in adapter settings and in LAN port's LEDs.

 

I tried to hard reset router and BIOS after the fresh install of Windows. Unfortunately, I did not get any good results.

 

As the hope dies last, I will play with some of the options inside the advanced tab of PCIe GBE controller and see if something works. If nothing works, I will look into the MSI's warranty. If that is not an option anymore, I will start to look for Realtek 8111H chipset for the replacement work.

 

The last troubleshooting step left is to try a different router, just to be sure that the current one is absolutely healthy.

 

This may be a crazy idea, but can a faulty BIOS/router firmware potentially cripple network after some time has passed from the flash/update?

[Crave]

Another update:

 

For anybody who is either interested or has a similar problem.

 

After I have checked wired connection with a different router, the speed is the same, as in wireless connection. I have also checked every port on Archer A8, in case there is still hope, but every port gave me the same 0.20-0.30 Mbps download speed. The only difference between them is that some ports give plus-minus 0.05/0.10 better speed than the other one.

 

I don't know what happened with electricity when I was not home, but it seems that the ethernet switch chip/other chip, which controls all ports is completely fried.

 

Hope TP-Link's support is better than MSI/Gigabyte.