I moved my office from one end of the house to the other a few days ago. Whoever installed the cables in this house should be sued for malpractice, so the router needs to stay where it is. I have 900 Mbps service and am used to downloads of 250 to 350 Mpbs, occasionally higher. I bought a 75-foot Cat6A Ethernet cable from Cable Matters and plugged it in. It replaced a short Cat6 cable. Suddenly incoming speed tops out under 10 Mbps. It once came in at 0.6. I tried wifi, which is coming in around 150 Mbps, but the attempt to install an adapter in my desk box went poorly. Can anyone suggest a source of cables that will deliver the speed I am used to? For what I do, I really need it. Many thanks.
Cable problem
- Thread starter PBreen
- Start date
Or just return that cable as defective and try Cable Matters again. Is there a way you could use the cable with it all in the same room as a test rather than having it routed all around the house? That would be the easiest way to verify whether the cable is the issue, and you'd have to have serious interference to kill speeds like that. You certainly don't need Cat6A, or even Cat6, and Cat5e would be much cheaper and easier to work with and is fine even if you moved to 2.5GbE networking later, unless you anticipate upgrading to 10Gb at some point.
Why are you paying for 900Mbps service and being satisfied with maxing out at 350Mbps? You certainly shouldn't be trying to set up Wi-Fi in your desktop if you might end up only getting 150Mbps.
Why are you paying for 900Mbps service and being satisfied with maxing out at 350Mbps? You certainly shouldn't be trying to set up Wi-Fi in your desktop if you might end up only getting 150Mbps.
Thanks for the ideas, continuum. Just a bare concrete floor. The wiring is all in the walls.
Lord Evermore, Thanks for your suggestions as well. It's a nuisance to carry this machine back to the original office, but I will see what happens. Maybe I can dig out the Ethernet to DisplayPort adapter and test with my ancient MacBook Pro.
FWIW, my desktop motherboard has a 2.5GB port and a 1GB port. I imagine either would do what I need.
I am using an Xfinity Gateway. Now that I look at the details, "For maximum speeds of 1 Gbps to 1.2 Gbps, your desktop or laptop will need a 1G copper Ethernet interface and a 1G Ethernet adapter. These will need to be paired with a Cat5e (or better) Ethernet cable." Unless they are referring to something I don't understand, I have all of them where they need to be,
I have been accepting slower download speeds because I imagine this line is shared by the surrounding houses, and performance is degraded as a result. It definitely falls off in those hours when neighbors could be expected to be online. I will see what Xfinity can do about it.
No, I don't really want to use wifi on it. That was a desperation move until I could figure out the problem.
Lord Evermore, Thanks for your suggestions as well. It's a nuisance to carry this machine back to the original office, but I will see what happens. Maybe I can dig out the Ethernet to DisplayPort adapter and test with my ancient MacBook Pro.
FWIW, my desktop motherboard has a 2.5GB port and a 1GB port. I imagine either would do what I need.
I am using an Xfinity Gateway. Now that I look at the details, "For maximum speeds of 1 Gbps to 1.2 Gbps, your desktop or laptop will need a 1G copper Ethernet interface and a 1G Ethernet adapter. These will need to be paired with a Cat5e (or better) Ethernet cable." Unless they are referring to something I don't understand, I have all of them where they need to be,
I have been accepting slower download speeds because I imagine this line is shared by the surrounding houses, and performance is degraded as a result. It definitely falls off in those hours when neighbors could be expected to be online. I will see what Xfinity can do about it.
No, I don't really want to use wifi on it. That was a desperation move until I could figure out the problem.
Okay, now this is weird. I found the DisplayPort adapter and tried the old laptop in the old office. It came in around 34 Mbps in tests on different servers. (Oddly long connect times.) Tried it in the new office hooked to the Ethernet cable. Roughly 32.x Mbps.
Then I reconnected the desk machine. Now it is giving me 91 to 94 Mbps. I have no idea why it has changed when nothing about the connection has save for being hooked to a different computer temporarily.
Still way below what I am paying for, of course.
Does this make sense to anyone?
Then I reconnected the desk machine. Now it is giving me 91 to 94 Mbps. I have no idea why it has changed when nothing about the connection has save for being hooked to a different computer temporarily.
Still way below what I am paying for, of course.
Does this make sense to anyone?
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The "cable is slower because it's shared" myth has always been overblown by competitors, and these days it's definitely not as big a deal. It should never be giving you 300Mbps when you're rated for 900Mbps as far as I'm concerned. I'd be pissed if I was limited to even 600Mbps for any extended period and filing complaints. You really have to be in a seriously dense area for performance issues to show up regularly (many large apartment buildings dense).
Moving this higher before all the other stuff: Another thing (actually the biggest thing): does your mainboard use an Intel i225 or i226 chip for the networking? Try configuring it to 1Gb connection instead of auto-detect. Those models of controllers have known severe problems with connectivity when set to auto speed. Firmware updates and driver updates have mitigated many of the problems, but not all of them. They are well known for giving people sub-1Gb speed on average for a transfer even when linked at 2.5Gb, because they drop and reconnect so often.
You may actually have a coax signal issue. Just tightening all the connectors, indoors and out, can make a significant difference, otherwise have Xfinity check on it. (Smaller possibility, but you could have the wrong model gateway, if you upgraded the speed but it wasn't replaced. Older models simply don't have the channel count for higher speeds, or are an earlier DOCSIS revision.)
As to the speed on the devices, I'm not sure what you mean by a DisplayPort adapter. DP is video. Is it a Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter? (Older versions of TB used the same connector as mini-DP.) That's the only way I can see you testing speeds with that. Did you move the gateway around much during all of this? If the cable connection is loose (or even the connector on the device), that could explain why the performance is varying so much. Or the connectors of the cable really are faulty and moving them around is giving you differing levels of connection.
Check the OS network status and see what speed link the cable is giving you. It sounds like you're probably only getting 100Mbps instead of gigabit, and that it's a faulty 100Mb at that so sometimes it barely maintains a link. That could be a further indicator of the cable being bad. Could just be one connector that didn't quite crimp right. The OS event logs might also show the connection going up and down a lot. Is that TB to Ethernet connector a Gigabit model or only 100Mb?
A cheap cable tester is also a good investment for anybody that occasionally works on their own PCs and networking.
Let's take things one at a time so everything is clear:
Your later testing (34 megabit and 94 megabit) on different computers and cables indicates a problem with the ISP connection (maybe modem or router) or you are getting a 100 megabit connection on the PC instead of 1000 megabit. You can look at the link status in the control panel/settings area to see what speed it is showing.
So you mean you moved a PC from one end (presumably it was close to the router which is connected to a Coax cable internet service) of the house to the other. Right?
I'm guessing that means there is no coax at the location you would prefer to have the router?
Depending how you measure it, that could be completely normal (many online services simply won't give you more than that for common things like downloading a video/picture etc. but Steam, torrents, etc. should be able to go near the max speed of your service under most circumstances.
To... one of the router LAN ports? And the other end to your PC that you moved? Just want to be clear on what you did exactly.
That sounds more like a problem with the internet service now. Start by powering off the cable modem and router. Wait at least 5 to 10 minutes. Power on the modem. Wait for it to be on for a few minutes. Then power on the router again. Then reboot your PC and do some tests (speed test sites, download from microsoft, steam, whatever).
Probably normal.
Also potentially normal, depending on what you have. I would recommend a simple USB wifi adapter for troubleshooting purposes or even long term use if you get a good one.
Your later testing (34 megabit and 94 megabit) on different computers and cables indicates a problem with the ISP connection (maybe modem or router) or you are getting a 100 megabit connection on the PC instead of 1000 megabit. You can look at the link status in the control panel/settings area to see what speed it is showing.
Any cable should be fine. I can count on one hand the number of actually 'bad from the store' cables I have had in 25+ years. Damaged after use? Sure. Wrong type for the job? Sometimes. Total cable path too long to work well? Occasionally (over 100 m total length once patch cables etc. are all combined). Your cable is probabaly fine unless you can find visible damage or kinks in it from it being run over by a chair or pinched or something.
moosemaimer
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Are all of these tests against internet destinations? Any way you can set up a share/FTP on your local network and do a speedtest against that, just to be extra sure it's not something other than the cable?
Depending on your PC platform, you should be able to check the negotiated link speed. 10M, 100M, 1G, 2.5G. That's a start.
I would be suspecting the cable first, not last. Asserting they are a good manufacturer is pointless. At the very least look at the link speed, 10Mb is suspicious to me. Also, get a cable tester on it if you can.
I would be suspecting the cable first, not last. Asserting they are a good manufacturer is pointless. At the very least look at the link speed, 10Mb is suspicious to me. Also, get a cable tester on it if you can.
Cable testers are useless for S/UTP. They show if a wire is connected correctly, it doesn't show stats about signal degradation, you need a cable certifier for that and they start at 4 figure range.
Best alternative is making sure you are connected at 1G full duplex on both sides or faster, that auto-negotiation works, and then use iperf or similar tool to measure internal network throughput. It should hit 700 Mbps+ for a typical 1G link. Check network adapter stats, it should show zero corrected/uncorrectable errors on both sides.
If one side sees 10/100M, or half duplex, the cable is bad, or adapter / port on the switch. Swap port / adapter / cable until you get 1G full.
Best alternative is making sure you are connected at 1G full duplex on both sides or faster, that auto-negotiation works, and then use iperf or similar tool to measure internal network throughput. It should hit 700 Mbps+ for a typical 1G link. Check network adapter stats, it should show zero corrected/uncorrectable errors on both sides.
If one side sees 10/100M, or half duplex, the cable is bad, or adapter / port on the switch. Swap port / adapter / cable until you get 1G full.
Lord Evermore, many thanks for exposing that myth. If I am not contending with that, my net service is worse than I thought. Xfinity, FWIW.
It's a Realtek® RTL8125B 2.5G LAN interface. The company does not say what chip they have in it, and so far I have not found that online. I have always guessed that they used a proprietary chip. Won't surprise me if it's under a heatsink. Whatever. I will set it to 1 GB.
The indoor connectors are gentle-wrench tight, at least on this circuit. I replaced the splitter with a 6-port model, anticipating rewiring the house, so that's good. There could be another splitter downstream, but I have not found it yet.
I will call tech support about the gateway.
I meant Thunderbolt, of course. Brain glitch.
Don't know about the Ethernet-to-Thunderbolt connector. It's the Apple product. I will try to find out. In any case, it is only for the laptop. I am more worried about the desk machine.
Thanks for your help.
It's a Realtek® RTL8125B 2.5G LAN interface. The company does not say what chip they have in it, and so far I have not found that online. I have always guessed that they used a proprietary chip. Won't surprise me if it's under a heatsink. Whatever. I will set it to 1 GB.
The indoor connectors are gentle-wrench tight, at least on this circuit. I replaced the splitter with a 6-port model, anticipating rewiring the house, so that's good. There could be another splitter downstream, but I have not found it yet.
I will call tech support about the gateway.
I meant Thunderbolt, of course. Brain glitch.
Don't know about the Ethernet-to-Thunderbolt connector. It's the Apple product. I will try to find out. In any case, it is only for the laptop. I am more worried about the desk machine.
Thanks for your help.
Absolutely, but if the link speed is poor, it'll tell you if you lost a pair and are currently half-duplex or something. First things first I'd say.
Forgot to mention, I am in the market for a tester. Do you have any suggestions for a good, not horribly expensive model? As usual, Amazon's search engine is so bad that I will have to find another source.
It doesn't tell you much, even the negotiated link speed is pickier. It can show 8 greens and the link is still shit / negotiate at 10/100M. If you lost a pair you are always running at 100Mbps max. If negotiation to 1G full duplex fails you need to swap cable, adaptor and port until you get back to 1G.
Basic blikenlights model works for me, tells me if I misspunched something.
Little bit fancier ones don't do much more imo.
/r/sysadmin ranking goes
LinkRunner / LinkIQ > NetProwler > Pocket Ethernet > nettool io
But the last 2 are really not in the same class as previous 2. First two tell you exactly how good the link is, signal level, reflection, all the things needed especially at 10G speed. Last two don't do signal quality, just connected vs not connected.
Paladin, the Xfinity Gateway router is hooked up to Xfinity coax cable internet.
In my former office, where the router still resides, the cable was six feet, longer than needed but the shortest conveniently available twenty years and many modems ago. The computer is now on a 75-foot cable, longer than necessary, but 50 feet was not quite enough.
The network connection in this room does not deliver a signal that the modem/router can use. The cable leaving the attic is not the cable that arrives here, so there is at least one splitter upstream of this connection. The jack comes off a splitter in this junction box. God knows what happens downstream. I suspect the cable in the attic, where the customers can see it, is Cat6, and the rest is Cat5/.
Yes, the cable goes from an RJ-45 connector on the router to one on the back of the motherboard.
I have rebooted the modem/router deliberately at least twice. A couple of days of high winds shut the power down several times for long enough that the router had to start over. I will try shutting it down longer.
Why is this editor doing strange things to my periods and registering a close-paren when I type open-paren? No, I don't expect you to know.
Here is one problem. This Realtek interface is specced to be capable of only 100 Mbps each direction. Will replace it with a separate card.
I don't see how this meshes with my former download speeds of up to 350 Mbps, though.? (
In my former office, where the router still resides, the cable was six feet, longer than needed but the shortest conveniently available twenty years and many modems ago. The computer is now on a 75-foot cable, longer than necessary, but 50 feet was not quite enough.
The network connection in this room does not deliver a signal that the modem/router can use. The cable leaving the attic is not the cable that arrives here, so there is at least one splitter upstream of this connection. The jack comes off a splitter in this junction box. God knows what happens downstream. I suspect the cable in the attic, where the customers can see it, is Cat6, and the rest is Cat5/.
Yes, the cable goes from an RJ-45 connector on the router to one on the back of the motherboard.
I have rebooted the modem/router deliberately at least twice. A couple of days of high winds shut the power down several times for long enough that the router had to start over. I will try shutting it down longer.
Why is this editor doing strange things to my periods and registering a close-paren when I type open-paren? No, I don't expect you to know.
Here is one problem. This Realtek interface is specced to be capable of only 100 Mbps each direction. Will replace it with a separate card.
I don't see how this meshes with my former download speeds of up to 350 Mbps, though.? (
moosemaimer, I may be able to set up a share that way, but I haven't a clue how it's done. This kind of issue is new territory for me.
von Chaps, thanks for your thoughts. A cable tester will be on its way as soon as I figure out what to buy.
w00key, thanks for your ideas and the info about cable testers. I don't believe a multi-$thousand model lies in my near future . In any case, I would not have any idea what to do with most of its features
One last thought: If the Realtek interface is good for only 100 Mbps, why does the motherboard have RJ-45 sockets labeled 1 GB and 2.5 GB? Next step is to get into the box., . ,
von Chaps, thanks for your thoughts. A cable tester will be on its way as soon as I figure out what to buy.
w00key, thanks for your ideas and the info about cable testers. I don't believe a multi-$thousand model lies in my near future . In any case, I would not have any idea what to do with most of its features
One last thought: If the Realtek interface is good for only 100 Mbps, why does the motherboard have RJ-45 sockets labeled 1 GB and 2.5 GB? Next step is to get into the box., . ,
Anyways no need for a tester. Just buy a new cable. No tester under $250 will test anything other then continuity. And your cable in question would of course test GOOD even if it wasn't.
Here's the deal. Your cable modem should for the most part deliver 75% of the rated speed. Or you're better off dropping speed tiers.
So straight from the modem. Your speed should be the maximum ever possible to be delivered to your location given the plan you are describing.
What you're also mentioning is splitting. Your cable modem in the room that it was in. It got 300Mbps you say and you can't move it because the it won't get the same speed. It has to all do with the Coax RG-6 wiring. There should be almost no splits. Like one that goes to the modem and the rest that feed the CATV.
So before you go though all this cabling work. Get your Cable Modem and service in order. Get that to the right location. Also you never mentioned age of the modem. If you're running like a 5 year old modem. Have only 300Mbps service on a 900Mbps rated plan. Your cable modem must be running at Maximum power and probably cooking itself to death.
Here's the deal. Your cable modem should for the most part deliver 75% of the rated speed. Or you're better off dropping speed tiers.
So straight from the modem. Your speed should be the maximum ever possible to be delivered to your location given the plan you are describing.
What you're also mentioning is splitting. Your cable modem in the room that it was in. It got 300Mbps you say and you can't move it because the it won't get the same speed. It has to all do with the Coax RG-6 wiring. There should be almost no splits. Like one that goes to the modem and the rest that feed the CATV.
So before you go though all this cabling work. Get your Cable Modem and service in order. Get that to the right location. Also you never mentioned age of the modem. If you're running like a 5 year old modem. Have only 300Mbps service on a 900Mbps rated plan. Your cable modem must be running at Maximum power and probably cooking itself to death.
"Useless" is a bit extreme. Nobody has made any claims that they're going to identify anything other than "is there anything broken in the cable". But if you're trying to figure out why a link isn't working, identifying that there is in fact a break in the cable somewhere is exactly what a home user needs. Then you replace the $20 cable. Even a professional can make use of this cheap tool in the right circumstances. (Which I did regularly.) The odds of the cable having a defect that makes the signal strength intermittently low so that it can't maintain a proper link is much lower than even the odds of it having a broken wire in the cable or connector. Why would you simply eliminate a basic troubleshooting step that costs very little solely because it doesn't also allow the most in-depth testing?
That is the chipset. Realtek is the chipset brand, used by manufacturers of the actual cards/mainboards.
What do you mean that it's spec'd for only 100Mbps? That chipset is rated for 2.5GbE. Where do you see only 100?
It's possible that with the various splitters you've got all over one of them has been sub-par and incapable of the signal quality needed for the full speed of your service. That might be especially true if they've been in place for a long time. (You can log into the gateway and view the stats of the signal, including errors.)
Fluke is another well-known brand of testers, but they're moderately expensive (for good quality). But this would be perfectly fine for your needs.
https://www.amazon.com/Optimal-Shop-Network-Tester-Ethernet/dp/B072LJYHKP
I have a cheap 20-year-old tester that was beat up and the casing was broken and it still works fine. I bought a Fluke years ago for use at work which cost $150 (now $308) which was able to tone out the cable and test coax, and which can test cables that are plugged in on one end. (A normal tester cannot be used for tone if one end is plugged into a live port.) You can get others for a bit more with additional features at very reasonable prices.
Toning including live cables, as well as PoE test and cable length test/fault distance: https://www.amazon.com/Ethernet-NF-8209-Distance-Location-Measurement/dp/B08M3SRB2Q
Incorrect. I just pointed one out. And he doesn't necessarily need anything more than continuity testing. The odds are vanishingly small that the cable is just such poor quality that it has good connections but can't support a good enough signal. And a cable tester is something useful to have on-hand for less than $50.
If the modem is only rated for lower speeds because it only supports fewer channels or a lower DOCSIS version, it's not "cooking itself to death". It's just running at its normal rated speed, exactly the same as if it was operating on a lower-rated service. It negotiates the number of channels and version that it supports. It's not being flooded with extra signals or anything.
I am also confused by the part about 'If the Realtek interface is good for only 100 Mbps'. How are you making that determination?
The Realtek chip you listed is good for up to 2.5 Gbit (10/100/1000/2500 megabit). Why do you think it only does 100 Megabit?
Something that remains unclear: The internet is very slow after moving the router. Did you move it back? And if so, is it still slow after putting everything back how it was?
If things work better with the router in the room with the cable modem, simply leave it there and use the 75 foot cable to connect from a LAN port to your desktop computer where you want it. Assuming the cable is good, it should work fine that way. 75 feet is fine as long as the equipment is all in good working order.
The Realtek chip you listed is good for up to 2.5 Gbit (10/100/1000/2500 megabit). Why do you think it only does 100 Megabit?
Something that remains unclear: The internet is very slow after moving the router. Did you move it back? And if so, is it still slow after putting everything back how it was?
If things work better with the router in the room with the cable modem, simply leave it there and use the 75 foot cable to connect from a LAN port to your desktop computer where you want it. Assuming the cable is good, it should work fine that way. 75 feet is fine as long as the equipment is all in good working order.
Andrewcw, good point about the tester, though Lord Evermore seems to have found one that does what I need for a lot less than I would have imagined possible. No doubt it helps to know what you are looking for.
Yes, by the time I am done, every outlet in the house will have its own direct cable. I will even put one in the kitchen, where none exists. But it will take a while. Finding an extra day to work on anything is nearly impossible. Also, I live in East Armpit, FL, where even the air conditioning guys will not spend much time in the attic during the summer.
Yes, by the time I am done, every outlet in the house will have its own direct cable. I will even put one in the kitchen, where none exists. But it will take a while. Finding an extra day to work on anything is nearly impossible. Also, I live in East Armpit, FL, where even the air conditioning guys will not spend much time in the attic during the summer.
Which you can do with the cheapest continuity tester. All the added features are no help in determining how fast the link will be when all 8 cores are connected.
In this case. IF the cable gets a link. Which it did. It means any cable tester would light up all 8 lights. I don't think any modern switch or port on a router or cable modem will default down to a 10Mbps 4-wire ethernet standard solution.
And what i mean by cooking itself to death. There is a Power factor the CATV company can adjust. I'm going to assume they are near maximum in this area because he's only getting a fraction of what is possible. They run it as low as possible. But being that low in speed at the price he's paying at. If all customers only get that slow speed. They'll be pumping up that power on that branch.
So if you live in Armpit, FL assuming this is a house because you mention Attic. Your Cable modem should be in the room that the CATV line first Pokes into your domicile and no place else. Or be one that is closest to the CATV main feed. Be that if they ran it into your attic and then split into like 8 different directions and you're feeding off one of those 8 directions. Which would need rewiring.
But also a follow-up question. Are you using the CATV signal at all?
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Which of course we all have laying around and wouldn't need to order, unlike a cable tester that can quickly check every wire and confirm they're also connected in the right order, or a tester for only slightly more money that offers many more features.
Which will still be within a standard specification that the modem should handle with ease. It might not last 20 years, but it will still function for an acceptable period of time and operate at normal speeds during that time, because it's within the design specifications. Unless it's sitting in a room where the ambient temperature is 90F all the time and 90% humidity and the electricity is really dirty, it's going to work fine and at the full rated speeds. I doubt it's possible to even use a modem anymore that is so old that the specifications for the power factor allowed on the network changed.
Similar to a PC processor. It doesn't really matter if you use the stock heatsink or a huge water-cooling setup if you're just running at stock speeds. It's not going to be faster or slower as long as the temperature is kept within the specifications, and CPUs in the two situations aren't going to fail within a significantly different amount of time (attributable to the cooling type or temperatures).
Default, of course not. If all 4 pairs are detected, even intermittently, or if the signal quality is really bad, it will keep trying to make a gigabit link and falling back to 100Mb which would cause a horrible loss of throughput, even below 100. But if it can't find all 4 pairs, it will negotiate to 100Mb, and most devices will still support 10Mb and even half-duplex. Even Cisco Catalyst switches will still work at 10Mb, and you can still buy routers and switches that don't even support gigabit. (I specifically just searched and found someone complaining because their PC was only connecting at 10Mbps, the actual LAN link speed, on a Comcast gateway as well as other references to them supporting that.)
Okay, I think this may be a clue. I am writing this on my phone with a cell connection. My net service has gone down. No Ethernet cable, no WiFi. The gateway still appears to be connected, according to its status light, but I am not sure how much that means.
The lights can be confusing. Xfinity may have a page when you log into your account that lets you check the connection status, even if you're logged in from another connection, and may let you "soft reset" the connection. When you say "no ethernet cable" do you mean the link light for even that one port is dead? Your phone doesn't even see the Wi-Fi? Does the PC itself show that the network link is down? If not, then it's just an Internet service outage and a reboot usually fixes that unless the provider really has an outage. It may also be that Xfinity sent a reset for some reason, which isn't common during normal hours, so it might just be in the midst of a reboot. Or maybe the gateway really is defective.
There's a small chance that the port on your PC is faulty; I think it's likely that the TB to Ethernet adapter was only a 10/100 model. A cheap network card to install and have on-hand for troubleshooting wouldn't hurt. You really only need gigabit but future-proofing with 2.5Gb isn't expensive. Or USB to Ethernet for wider compatibility.
https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-1000Mbps-Gigabit-Ethernet-supported/dp/B003CFATNIhttps://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-2-5GB-PCIe-Network-TX201/dp/B0BG685PKMhttps://www.amazon.com/USB-Ethernet-Adapter-Gigabit-Switch/dp/B09GRL3VCNhttps://www.amazon.com/Plugable-Ethernet-Adapter-Compatible-Thunderbolt/dp/B084L4JL9K
All of this COULD come down to a defective gateway. It could explain the widely varying performance with the same or different devices plugged into the LAN ports even when the gateway hasn't moved, with different cables or the same, and the very poor overall performance of the service for all this time. It's even possible that the LAN side has been faulty and has been the true source of the problem all this time. You definitely need to contact Xfinity no matter what, to have them check the signal, and if they say they don't see a problem them push for them to replace the gateway based on the fact that nothing on your network is able to get decent wired performance out of it. Don't let them tell you that 300Mbps "meets the terms of service" when that's the usual maximum speed rather than an occasional reduced speed. In the meantime, you can also be testing out with different cables or adapters just to be sure.
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Finally narrowed it down. I took the modem and laptop out to the incoming cable from the former Comcast. Hooked them up. The router works fine, both Ethernet and WiFi. No guarantee it will deliver the speed I need, but it works.
Looks like I learn to install cable. I don’t know where the problem is, in the cable coming into the only splitter the house will contain when I am done or or the one to the office. Don’t much care. I will replace the oncoming line and run a new one to the nearest wall in the room my computer now occupies. The rest of the house can wait.
It suddenly occurs to me to wonder whether a raccoon has gotten in and chewed on the cable. I don’t suppose armored coax is readily available. Or cheap.
All suggestions welcome!
Looks like I learn to install cable. I don’t know where the problem is, in the cable coming into the only splitter the house will contain when I am done or or the one to the office. Don’t much care. I will replace the oncoming line and run a new one to the nearest wall in the room my computer now occupies. The rest of the house can wait.
It suddenly occurs to me to wonder whether a raccoon has gotten in and chewed on the cable. I don’t suppose armored coax is readily available. Or cheap.
All suggestions welcome!
Final report: I spent some time this afternoon replacing the cable that comes in from the ISP's junction box. The new one works, and well. Google's speed test reported 852.4 Mbps with a Cat6A Ethenet cable. Ookla says 921.36! I can live with that.
Wifi is still pathetic, though. In a bunch of tests with different servers, Most readings were in the neighborhood of 4.5 Mbps. No idea why, but I can live with that as long as the desk machine is good.
I will still rewire the rest of the house as time permits. I want all those splitters gone.
Thanks to all for your help. I now know more about cables than I did, and your diagnostic ideas kept me thinking instead of throwing up my hands.
Wifi is still pathetic, though. In a bunch of tests with different servers, Most readings were in the neighborhood of 4.5 Mbps. No idea why, but I can live with that as long as the desk machine is good.
I will still rewire the rest of the house as time permits. I want all those splitters gone.
Thanks to all for your help. I now know more about cables than I did, and your diagnostic ideas kept me thinking instead of throwing up my hands.
I never thought of checking that cable. Cool.
Look at the status of your wireless devices and see what their actual link speed is when you're testing. You may have terrible penetration of the wireless through your home.
Reconfigure the Wi-Fi settings in the gateway so that the 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks have different SSIDs, and connect your devices to the 5GHz network specifically, assuming the mobile devices support it. If you're in the same room with the gateway, you'll likely get significantly better speeds on both networks. When you connect to 2.4GHz, you'll likely only get 150Mbps link speed and 100Mbps real throughput at most, but your gateway and devices may support 40MHz channel width so you could double that. However, when you go to other rooms, it may change a lot. 5GHz doesn't go through walls as well, and depending on the construction of the house your devices may not be able to connect on 5GHz through band steering AND the 2.4GHz might be struggling to get through. (Don't know what rooms you were testing in but it sounds like this is the problem. Furniture and appliances can also block the signal a lot.) In that case, you'll want to get a separate wireless access point that you can locate more centrally and disable the built-in wireless, or get one of Xfinity's mesh APs so that both will be active and provide the best coverage. Or get two of your own mesh APs and disable the built-in so you'll have full control, if a single central AP isn't good enough. (The mesh AP will need a wired connection.)
When I was using Spectrum's gateway Wi-Fi, I discovered that fiddling with the advanced Wi-Fi settings (beacon interval, DTIM interval, channel width, etc.) made a huge difference in the performance for mine, given that I only had a few devices using it. The default settings are for the broadest compatibility and to support many devices over as large a physical area as possible. I doubled throughput. The gateway also had a HIGHTLY directional antenna arrangement. (One of the vertical box-shaped devices.) Rotating it 90 degrees so that one of the long sides faced the majority of my house from the corner room made a big difference in how strong the signal was and what link speed I got. You may be able ti find what type of antenna arrangement your gateway has by searching the model. Most APs now have omni-directional antennas arranged to provider coverage all around when they're internal, and those with external antennas can be aimed as needed.
Look at the status of your wireless devices and see what their actual link speed is when you're testing. You may have terrible penetration of the wireless through your home.
Reconfigure the Wi-Fi settings in the gateway so that the 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks have different SSIDs, and connect your devices to the 5GHz network specifically, assuming the mobile devices support it. If you're in the same room with the gateway, you'll likely get significantly better speeds on both networks. When you connect to 2.4GHz, you'll likely only get 150Mbps link speed and 100Mbps real throughput at most, but your gateway and devices may support 40MHz channel width so you could double that. However, when you go to other rooms, it may change a lot. 5GHz doesn't go through walls as well, and depending on the construction of the house your devices may not be able to connect on 5GHz through band steering AND the 2.4GHz might be struggling to get through. (Don't know what rooms you were testing in but it sounds like this is the problem. Furniture and appliances can also block the signal a lot.) In that case, you'll want to get a separate wireless access point that you can locate more centrally and disable the built-in wireless, or get one of Xfinity's mesh APs so that both will be active and provide the best coverage. Or get two of your own mesh APs and disable the built-in so you'll have full control, if a single central AP isn't good enough. (The mesh AP will need a wired connection.)
When I was using Spectrum's gateway Wi-Fi, I discovered that fiddling with the advanced Wi-Fi settings (beacon interval, DTIM interval, channel width, etc.) made a huge difference in the performance for mine, given that I only had a few devices using it. The default settings are for the broadest compatibility and to support many devices over as large a physical area as possible. I doubled throughput. The gateway also had a HIGHTLY directional antenna arrangement. (One of the vertical box-shaped devices.) Rotating it 90 degrees so that one of the long sides faced the majority of my house from the corner room made a big difference in how strong the signal was and what link speed I got. You may be able ti find what type of antenna arrangement your gateway has by searching the model. Most APs now have omni-directional antennas arranged to provider coverage all around when they're internal, and those with external antennas can be aimed as needed.