Can Motherboard Affect Internet Speeds?

[Chairein]

So, in our new home we now have 1 GB download speeds (!!) which is very exciting . I am - for the most part - seeing materially around these speeds when hardwired in - except on my gaming computer which I built ~7 years ago now. When I hardwired into my work laptop I'm seeing ~850 MB download (eh, close enough!), but when I use that same hardwire to my gaming computer I only see ~200 MB download. I have an Asrock B250M Pro4 motherboard and am wondering if this could be the issue? It looks like the last LAN driver for Windows 10 64bit machines was was v21.1 released in 2016, which I do have installed.

 

Any thoughts? Do I need to upgrade motherboard to see the expected download speeds?

[Oshino Shinobu]

Try the drivers from Intel's site: https://downloadmirror.intel.com/739885/Wired_driver_27.6_x64.zip

The NIC is an Intel I219V, driver above is from July 2022

[Chairein]

Thank you @Oshino Shinobu! Maybe a dumb question, but is this a driver for the motherboard? Does it not need to come from Asrock to work?

[Oshino Shinobu]

39 minutes ago, Chairein said:

Thank you @Oshino Shinobu! Maybe a dumb question, but is this a driver for the motherboard? Does it not need to come from Asrock to work?

The ethernet controller on the motherboard is from Intel (an I219V controller). The driver that ASRock provides on their site is just the Intel driver. Often what happens is on discontinued boards the manufacturer will stop updating the driver downloads, even though Intel (or others, such as Realtek etc.) has released newer drivers. ASRock isn't the one making the drivers for the ethernet controller so doesn't need to come from their site, better to get the latest ones from Intel.

[Chairein]

Hey @Oshino Shinobu (and anyone else who sees this thread!). I've since tried several other solutions for this but to no avail. Since I think this is now a 'Network' issue, I've moved the thread - would you mind taking a look there and providing some thoughts?