Could my motherboard really limit my Internet speed!?

Tropicocity · 13 Aug 2013 at 00:34

Hi all,

Have been meaning to find genuine reasons to post on OcUK as although the free shipping looks good, I don't want to spam for no reason. Anyway here goes.

I've recently upgraded to Virgin's 120mbit internet (was 100mbit, free increase to 120!) and have become rather stumped.

My dad's computer manages a gorgeous 125-126mbit down, of course it's always connected to the superhub itself by wire, whereas I'd always been on wireless.

The most my wireless card was able to receive was somewhere in the region of around 50mbit, so I decided to go the wired approach.

For a while now I'd been running off a cat5e cable and only maxing out at around ~91mbit at very early hours of the morning, usually more around the 75-80mbit mark.

My dad got a hold of a cat6 cable, and to my surprise it gave me the EXACT same speed at the other one.

Could my Asus P7P55D (4 years old) really not be able to handle more than this speed? I was under the impression that "gigabit" ethernet meant I could handle 100mbit with ease.

If this is the case, I may just spring for an upgrade from my aging i5 750 ><

Woden · 13 Aug 2013 at 00:39

How long is the ethernet cable?

Tropicocity · 13 Aug 2013 at 00:44

5 metres :/

Woden · 13 Aug 2013 at 00:49

Transfer a few mahoosive files from his PC to yours, add up the download rates.

Tropicocity · 13 Aug 2013 at 00:52

I've used Speedtest.net and done a few downloads over usenet (Keep in mind usenet will 99% of the time use 100% of your bandwidth to download) and they both confirm that I'm ~30-40 meg behind my dad's PC. Really strange :/

Woden · 13 Aug 2013 at 01:07

Dont trust speedtest.net for a start. Transfer files from your dads pc to yours to see if the issue is local or not

murah · 13 Aug 2013 at 02:16

in answer to your question "Could my Asus P7P55D (4 years old) really not be able to handle more than this speed?"

Yes it is entirely possible however can you check that you are running in gigabit ethernet mode not 100Mb/s (Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network Connections). on a slightly related note I was stuck @ 60Mb/s despite upgrading to 120Mb/s, turns out my router was old and not upto the task. So on the off chance disconnect other PC's and check your speed then

Good luck!

4737Joker · 13 Aug 2013 at 09:29

my first thoughts were how long is the cable your using. (already answered above i know)

How long is your dads cable? and can you move your pc next to the hub and try a shorter one?

It might be worth looking in the hub settings as well, im sure theres an option in there about bandwith limiting etc.

And you could try swapping the port your cable is plugged in to on the router, maybe with your dads

Try it with just your pc connected as well.

Terrier_Jimlad · 13 Aug 2013 at 09:37

Sounds like your dad has QOS enabled and he gets priority over you muhahahah

Tropicocity · 21 Aug 2013 at 12:37

Wellll I am stumped. Tried several cables none longer than 5 metres, tried switching ports, tried only my pc connected.

We've just gotten Virgin's new "superhub 2" and I'm still maxing out at just under 90 down, whereas my dad's system still gets ~125 down

Soon as I'm back from holiday i'll look into shifting off my i5 750 and I'll get myself a 4670k with a new mobo ><!

Confused · 21 Aug 2013 at 12:40

What speeds do you get transferring files between your dad's computer and your own, completely ignoring the internet side of things?

Rilot · 21 Aug 2013 at 13:01

Do what murah says and check that your network card is actually connecting at 1000Mb/sec.
I'd be willing to bet that it's connecting at 100Mb/sec. I've had a few older motherboards that were GbE that refused to connect at anything other than 100Mb/sec unless forced to do so.

Tropicocity · 21 Aug 2013 at 13:06

Edit: Post below is what the issue is!

Tropicocity · 21 Aug 2013 at 13:07

Rilot said:
Do what murah says and check that your network card is actually connecting at 1000Mb/sec.
I'd be willing to bet that it's connecting at 100Mb/sec. I've had a few older motherboards that were GbE that refused to connect at anything other than 100Mb/sec unless forced to do so.

Well I'll be bloody damned! Sure enough, I went to network and sharing, right clicked my Lan connection, status....100.0 Mbps :mad:

! How do I go about forcing 1000Mbps?

FrenchTart · 21 Aug 2013 at 13:16

Tropicocity said:
Well I'll be bloody damned! Sure enough, I went to network and sharing, right clicked my Lan connection, status....100.0 Mbps ! How do I go about forcing 1000Mbps?

Try updating your network drivers. Most likely you're using the default windows/generic ones and they're not playing as well as they should.

Tropicocity · 21 Aug 2013 at 13:21

I've go drivers dated 10/04/2013, this motherboard is from 2009

FrenchTart · 21 Aug 2013 at 13:29

Tropicocity said:
I've go drivers dated 10/04/2013, this motherboard is from 2009

Are you using drivers from the motherboard's site or generic drivers from the chip supplied (e.g. Realtek). Whichever you have, try the other.

Pulse · 21 Aug 2013 at 13:36

Have you double checked that the NIC isn't set to gigabit in bios? Might be the bios controlling it.

Tropicocity · 21 Aug 2013 at 13:54

FrenchTart said:
Are you using drivers from the motherboard's site or generic drivers from the chip supplied (e.g. Realtek). Whichever you have, try the other.

I've just downloaded another set of drivers, installed those, set my NIC to 1.0Gbps full duplex via device manager>properties..still stays at 100mbps, even after rebooting.

Pulse said:
Have you double checked that the NIC isn't set to gigabit in bios? Might be the bios controlling it.

My bios doesn't have any speed options for the NIC

It literally has "Realtek Ethernet" and enabled or disabled.

I guess my P7P55D Pro came with a duff NIC =[

ed79 · 21 Aug 2013 at 16:45

opps, ignore!