Wire room for ethernet or continue janky solution

[Jared_1]

I'm currently in the process of redoing my computer room. I've run a new CAT5E ethernet line from our 5268AC modem/router and ran it to my computer room where it's plugged into an 8 port gigabit switch I've purchased. At that point, I should be getting full gigabit speeds from the modem to my switch. However, other than that, 99% of my ethernet cables are CAT5 and I'm wondering if that's really killing my network speeds. Iperf was giving me speeds in the 700MBPS range which is really lacking. That might be due to the CAT 5 cables however I'm not sure. So in my quest to upgrade the room, I plan on buying some of those packages of 5 CAT6 ethernet cables in various lengths and replace all the CAT5 cables. Since I'm doing that, I was wondering if you all think I should attach ethernet jacks to walls and run them to a patch panel or just do what I'm going now of just running them across the floor. My dad and I have both expressed desires to wire the house for ethernet so I figured this might be a good time to do so. What are your thoughts?

[dany_boy]

2 minutes ago, Jared_1 said:

I'm currently in the process of redoing my computer room. I've run a new CAT5E ethernet line from our 5268AC modem/router and ran it to my computer room where it's plugged into an 8 port gigabit switch I've purchased. At that point, I should be getting full gigabit speeds from the modem to my switch. However, other than that, 99% of my ethernet cables are CAT5 and I'm wondering if that's really killing my network speeds. Iperf was giving me speeds in the 700MBPS range which is really lacking. That might be due to the CAT 5 cables however I'm not sure. So in my quest to upgrade the room, I plan on buying some of those packages of 5 CAT6 ethernet cables in various lengths and replace all the CAT5 cables. Since I'm doing that, I was wondering if you all think I should attach ethernet jacks to walls and run them to a patch panel or just do what I'm going now of just running them across the floor. My dad and I have both expressed desires to wire the house for ethernet so I figured this might be a good time to do so. What are your thoughts?

If the house is yours and you have the time/money to do proper Cat5e runs, then do it

[manikyath]

for the home CAT6 isnt worth it IMO, you should either go balls to the walls and go cat6A, or go with a really high quality cat5e cable.

[Jared_1]

3 minutes ago, dany_boy said:

If the house is yours and you have the time/money to do proper Cat5e runs, then do it

The issue with that is getting a good quality spool of CAT5e. I'm not sure where to pick one up at.

 

4 minutes ago, manikyath said:

for the home CAT6 isnt worth it IMO, you should either go balls to the walls and go cat6A, or go with a really high quality cat5e cable.

I don't need 10gigabit ethernet quite yet.  

 

I'll need to look around and source a spool.

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, Jared_1 said:

I don't need 10gigabit ethernet quite yet.  

 

I'll need to look around and source a spool.

well, a house is meant to last more than 5 years

[Jared_1]

18 minutes ago, manikyath said:

well, a house is meant to last more than 5 years

I'd hope so too. It's been around since the 1980's so I'm not too worried. 

[Raen]

Well, what you have in the wall must be CAT5E because if it wasn't you'd get limited to 100Mbps max as that is what Cat5 speeds are. So, there's absolutely no reason to upgrade your cables in the wall.

 

The more likely reason that you're getting 700Mbps vs 1000Mbps is that either your switch or NIC's connected to said switch doing the transfer are crap.

[dalekphalm]

2 hours ago, Jared_1 said:

I'm currently in the process of redoing my computer room. I've run a new CAT5E ethernet line from our 5268AC modem/router and ran it to my computer room where it's plugged into an 8 port gigabit switch I've purchased. At that point, I should be getting full gigabit speeds from the modem to my switch. However, other than that, 99% of my ethernet cables are CAT5 and I'm wondering if that's really killing my network speeds. Iperf was giving me speeds in the 700MBPS range which is really lacking. That might be due to the CAT 5 cables however I'm not sure. So in my quest to upgrade the room, I plan on buying some of those packages of 5 CAT6 ethernet cables in various lengths and replace all the CAT5 cables. Since I'm doing that, I was wondering if you all think I should attach ethernet jacks to walls and run them to a patch panel or just do what I'm going now of just running them across the floor. My dad and I have both expressed desires to wire the house for ethernet so I figured this might be a good time to do so. What are your thoughts?

Can you clarify the speeds you're talking about?

 

When you say "700MBPS", do you mean:

1. 700 MB/s (Megabytes per second), or

2. 700 Mbps (Megabits per second)

 

If it's the former, well that makes no sense, as that would be ~5.5 Gigabit per second, and is above the capacity of Gigabit networking equipment (5.5 times above said capacity).

 

If it's the latter, then that's pretty reasonable speeds for a Gigabit network. A bit slow, certainly, since the network can cap out at 1 Gigabit (1024 Mbps). But it's definitely not because of your older Cat5 cabling. Cat5 cabling tops out at 10/100 Fast Ethernet, which has a maximum speed of 100 Mbps (Megabits per second). Your speeds are running 7 times faster than Cat5 is capable of.

[Jared_1]

33 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Can you clarify the speeds you're talking about?

 

When you say "700MBPS", do you mean:

1. 700 MB/s (Megabytes per second), or

2. 700 Mbps (Megabits per second)

 

If it's the former, well that makes no sense, as that would be ~5.5 Gigabit per second, and is above the capacity of Gigabit networking equipment (5.5 times above said capacity).

 

If it's the latter, then that's pretty reasonable speeds for a Gigabit network. A bit slow, certainly, since the network can cap out at 1 Gigabit (1024 Mbps). But it's definitely not because of your older Cat5 cabling. Cat5 cabling tops out at 10/100 Fast Ethernet, which has a maximum speed of 100 Mbps (Megabits per second). Your speeds are running 7 times faster than Cat5 is capable of.

It's Megabits a second. What could it be then? The computers or the switches?

[Raen]

It's likely your NIC or switch. However, it could also be related to HDD speed depending on what you're transferring or downloading.

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, Jared_1 said:

It's Megabits a second. What could it be then? The computers or the switches?

Indeed there are many factors. Crappy NIC, crappy drivers, poor quality switch, slow HDD, etc.

 

700 Mbps = 87.5 MB/s, so if your HDD isn't capable of sustaining speeds beyond that, this could be the issue.

 

I would check for driver updates on your NIC. If you have another computer, try that and see if the speeds are identical. If you can borrow a switch from a friend, try swapping it in, etc.

[Jared_1]

51 minutes ago, Raen said:

It's likely your NIC or switch. However, it could also be related to HDD speed depending on what you're transferring or downloading.

My desktop has a Realtek RTL8111GR onboard NIC. That's most likely the issue. The other computer has a USB 3.0 ethernet adapter plugged into a USB 3.0 port. Both have jumbo frames enabled.  The switch in my computer room has no configuration settings at all (no management features ) and I'm not sure about our router/modem. I was using Iperf for the tests so the HDD might not be a factor in this instance.

 

53 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Indeed there are many factors. Crappy NIC, crappy drivers, poor quality switch, slow HDD, etc.

 

700 Mbps = 87.5 MB/s, so if your HDD isn't capable of sustaining speeds beyond that, this could be the issue.

 

I would check for driver updates on your NIC. If you have another computer, try that and see if the speeds are identical. If you can borrow a switch from a friend, try swapping it in, etc.

Crappy NIC is probably the issue here. I'll check the drivers. Btw. this is the switch that is in my computer room: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EVGIYG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Raen]

Your router/modem will have nothing to do with your within LAN transfer speeds. That'll be all  handled by your switch. I don't know what your 8 port gigabit switch is.. but if it's some cheap $30 switch.. I'd start there.

[Jared_1]

1 hour ago, Raen said:

Your router/modem will have nothing to do with your within LAN transfer speeds. That'll be all  handled by your switch. I don't know what your 8 port gigabit switch is.. but if it's some cheap $30 switch.. I'd start there.

I have a computer plugged into the 4 port gigabit switch on my router/modem. I then have a CAT5e cable plugged into the same router/modem that runs into my basement that then plugs into my 8 port gigabit switch that runs my computer room. If you scroll up a bit, I posted a link to the switch I bought.

[Raen]

Gotcha, sorry I assumed everything was plugged into the switch. As that's $20 switch.. that will probably be the slowest piece in my opinion. You could always try removing switch for a second and plugging the cable that normally goes to your switch into another device then do the test. It'll determine if it's an issue with the switch or not.

[Jared_1]

1 hour ago, Raen said:

Gotcha, sorry I assumed everything was plugged into the switch. As that's $20 switch.. that will probably be the slowest piece in my opinion. You could always try removing switch for a second and plugging the cable that normally goes to your switch into another device then do the test. It'll determine if it's an issue with the switch or not.

Ok. So I updated the NIC drivers on my desktop and plugged directly into the router and I was seeing transfer speeds of 56MB/s max and Iperf backed up the transfer speeds at it showed around 444 megabits a second. Worse that using my switch. :\

[Raen]

Okay, so now do a test between two devices connected to the switch and see if you get 1Gbps. If they get that speed then you know the issue is with your router/modem or your other computer's NIC that's connected to the router/modem.

[Jared_1]

5 hours ago, Raen said:

Okay, so now do a test between two devices connected to the switch and see if you get 1Gbps. If they get that speed then you know the issue is with your router/modem or your other computer's NIC that's connected to the router/modem.

Still the same slow speeds between devices on the switch.

[Raen]

Then the only thing left is bad network card(s) on either of the machines.

[paddy-stone]

OK, forgive me if I didn't read something properly here in the previous comments... but when you are testing the network, why don't you do a real world test to see if your Gigabit network is performing on par?  Transfer a large file over the network and see what speed you get, if it's around 108-112MB/s then you're pretty much on par for real world speeds. That's the speeds I get through my cat6 network from my NAS to computer, computer to computer etc.

If you're getting even 90% of the max speed it's still good, but if not then yeah I would upgrade it to cat6, it only takes a day or 2 to get the skill needed for making your own cables, and you can get some half decent cat6 cable for around $50 for 305 Metres, add crimping tool, cable stripper/cutter and the cat6e rj45 ends and a cable tester for around $30-$40 all-in.... prices might not be exact as it was a few years ago when I bought my stuff, but you can get a lot of cables out of that amount of money, and way less expensive than buying pre-made cables and having to faff around with cable runs being dodgy. I personally prefer the cat6e RJ45s to be the 2 part ones, as it makes it easier for fitting, I haven't had even one bad connector since day 2 of making my own cables. I even still have some of that first cable reel left as I only use it for home use and not in my business (business stuff bought separately), and just recently wired up another portion of the house that needed doing.