500mbps internet speed through a 100 mbps lan port(probably)

[wazzack]

Hi, so i never knew about network hardware and I've noticed that whenever im downloading games through steam, all of my internet usage is very slow to the point that i cannot open google. 
this issue vanish when i pause the download.

so my question now is,

- does my port only support up to 100mpbs? thats why it does not have more capacity to give? is it a thing?

- if it does, can a pcie lan card work better? 

 

thank you guys!

hardware
Realtek® RTL8111H - Asus B450 motherboard

[YoungBlade]

Your port supports 1 Gbps (1000 Mbps) but that doesn't mean that your cable does, or that the port on your router/switch does.

 

What is the model of router/switch that you have? And does your cable say that it is Cat 5E or Cat 6 on it? Do you have a spare cable you could test?

[Needfuldoer]

Your motherboard supports Gigabit Ethernet, but your router might not.

 

What model router do you have, and if you have any network switches between it and your PC what are their model numbers?

[Agall]

1 hour ago, wazzack said:

Hi, so i never knew about network hardware and I've noticed that whenever im downloading games through steam, all of my internet usage is very slow to the point that i cannot open google. 
this issue vanish when i pause the download.

so my question now is,

- does my port only support up to 100mpbs? thats why it does not have more capacity to give? is it a thing?

- if it does, can a pcie lan card work better? 

 

thank you guys!

hardware
Realtek® RTL8111H - Asus B450 motherboard

If you're actually saturating the 500Mb/sec connection from your USB through Steam, you could simply limit your maximum download speeds in the Steam client to 490Mb/sec (to give yourself 10Mb/sec for the browser, videos, etc), assuming its not a CPU limitation.

 

Downloading Steam games at 500Mb/sec is no easy feat, which is usually CPU limited before networking limited. Example being my connection, which will download from steam in excess of 850Mb/sec on my 7950x3D, but is limited to around 300Mb/sec on my 4790k (which sits at 100% CPU utilization the whole time). Steam unpacks/installs the game while its downloading, so its very CPU intensive and can sometimes be the limiting factor, which would also make other applications virtually unusable while.

 

 

[Anghammarad]

a little network flow explanation I often use to explain traffic behavior:

 

Imagine a firefighter waterhose, that hose is the internet connection. Now running a full tilt, packets to the wall download is like the hose giving it all spewing out water at high pressure (the download) now you try to enter a little other networkt traffic into that stream. 

 

Now imagine having a water pistol, and the water it spews out is aimed at the full tilt stream from the hose, it will not add but get bounced off. physically spoken, because the full stream is using the full force and the little from the pistol isn't powerfull enough to penetrate into that big stream. 

 

This is not 100% whats happening but a good visual explanation. 

 

If you start hammering google.com enter enter enter enter and so on, the stream might at some point makr a little room for other traffic. 

 

 

Cheers and happy imagination for understanding =)

 

Ang

[wazzack]

21 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

Your motherboard supports Gigabit Ethernet, but your router might not.

 

What model router do you have, and if you have any network switches between it and your PC what are their model numbers?

hi thanks for the respond, im not sure, but i just check with my roomate pc the speedtest showed 500mbps while mine is only halted until 90-99 mbps. we use the same router and same LAN cable. 

[wazzack]

21 hours ago, Anghammarad said:

a little network flow explanation I often use to explain traffic behavior:

 

Imagine a firefighter waterhose, that hose is the internet connection. Now running a full tilt, packets to the wall download is like the hose giving it all spewing out water at high pressure (the download) now you try to enter a little other networkt traffic into that stream. 

 

Now imagine having a water pistol, and the water it spews out is aimed at the full tilt stream from the hose, it will not add but get bounced off. physically spoken, because the full stream is using the full force and the little from the pistol isn't powerfull enough to penetrate into that big stream. 

 

This is not 100% whats happening but a good visual explanation. 

 

If you start hammering google.com enter enter enter enter and so on, the stream might at some point makr a little room for other traffic. 

 

 

Cheers and happy imagination for understanding =)

 

Ang

haha thanks for the explanation, somehow that all make sense!.

[wazzack]

22 hours ago, YoungBlade said:

Your port supports 1 Gbps (1000 Mbps) but that doesn't mean that your cable does, or that the port on your router/switch does.

 

What is the model of router/switch that you have? And does your cable say that it is Cat 5E or Cat 6 on it? Do you have a spare cable you could test?

hi thanks for the respond, we are using cat 5e. my roommate and i, we use the same router and same LAN cable. he got 500mbps while im stuck at aroung 90-99. 

[Needfuldoer]

8 minutes ago, wazzack said:

hi thanks for the respond, im not sure, but i just check with my roomate pc the speedtest showed 500mbps while mine is only halted until 90-99 mbps. we use the same router and same LAN cable. 

The same exact cable? Plugged into the same exact port on the router?

 

There's no network switch involved?

 

 

[YoungBlade]

1 minute ago, wazzack said:

hi thanks for the respond, we are using cat 5e. my roommate and i, we use the same router and same LAN cable. he got 500mbps while im stuck at aroung 90-99. 

If you right click on the network icon in the bottom right corner, and go to Network and Internet Settings and click "Properties" for your Ethernet, what does it say the "Link Speed" is? That will tell us what Windows thinks the cable is rated for.

 

Also, did you try swapping cables with your roommate? A cable can wear out over time and if a wire has been damaged inside a Cat 5E cable, it will usually fall back to 100Mbps, as that standard only needs half the wiring in the cable.

[wazzack]

this is my task manager when downloading, when doing this i can't even load this forum 

[wazzack]

3 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

The same exact cable? Plugged into the same exact port on the router?

 

There's no network switch involved?

 

 

yes, two cable with same spec and brand. same router different port

 

[wazzack]

4 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

If you right click on the network icon in the bottom right corner, and go to Network and Internet Settings and click "Properties" for your Ethernet, what does it say the "Link Speed" is? That will tell us what Windows thinks the cable is rated for.

 

Also, did you try swapping cables with your roommate? A cable can wear out over time and if a wire has been damaged inside a Cat 5E cable, it will usually fall back to 100Mbps, as that standard only needs half the wiring in the cable.

link speed is 100/100 mbps. i have not tried swapping cable yet. im gonna try later cause that requires me to disconnect my pc and bring it to my roommate room. and speaking of broken cable. my LAN cable sometimes disconnect randomly and i need to replug it back in to reconnect it. i will try swapping cable

[YoungBlade]

Just now, wazzack said:

link speed is 100/100 mbps. i have not tried swapping cable yet. im gonna try later cause that requires me to disconnect my pc and bring it to my roommate room. and speaking of broken cable. my LAN cable sometimes disconnect randomly and i need to replug it back in to reconnect it. i will try swapping cable

That sounds like the cable has been damaged. If the cable swap with your roommate works, then I think you just need to buy a new cable.

[wazzack]

1 minute ago, YoungBlade said:

That sounds like the cable has been damaged. If the cable swap with your roommate works, then I think you just need to buy a new cable.

sounds great! thanks for the help~, much appreciated. i'll keep you posted, thank you!

[Needfuldoer]

18 minutes ago, wazzack said:

yes, two cable with same spec and brand. same router different port

Try each other's cables and router ports.

 

If you get full speed with their cable and they're limited to 100 megs with yours, your cable is damaged. (Gigabit Ethernet needs all four pairs of wires in the cable to pass spec, 10/100 only needs two good pairs.)

 

If you still get 100 megs and they get full speed using your cable, there's a configuration issue with your computer.

[mariushm]

For some reason your network card has decided to switch to 100 mbps - you can try to switch it back to 1 gbps manually from Device Manager (right click on network card, properties, advanced, link speed or something like that, select 1 gbps / 1000 mbps, restart PC)

 

A card would switch itself to 100 mbps if there's too many transmission or reception errors, if the cable is bad, or if the connectors are bad and not all 8 wires  and all pins in the connector make good contact.

For 100 mbps, only 4 wires must make contact, for 1 gbps all 8 wires and pins must make contact.

 

So the easiest would be to test with your friend's cable first. Sometimes a wire breaks along the cable, or a wire disconnects in the plug and no longer makes contact with the pins of the plug.

 

if that doesn't fix it, then I would suggest actually inspecting the network jacks with your eyes to make sure all 8 pins in the jack on both your computer and the switch/router are all parallel and springy - in rare cases if you're too aggressive when you plug a connector in a jack those springy pins spring too much and pop out of their channel and "jump" in the neighbor channel and now two pins touch so the network card can no longer decode the signals properly.

 

<-  that's how those contacts can look in the jack, each pin bends down a bit when you insert the plug but can bend too hard if you plug too forcefully.

 

If one is not in the right location, you can use some tweezers or a pen or something thin to gently push down on the pin until it can easily slide back on its own channel in the connector.