Cannot get a gigabit connection on a gigabit rated switch

Mike1983 · 7 Nov 2009 at 14:30

Hi

I have an HP Procurve 1800-24G switch in my home network connected by patch leads to a patch panel followed by network sockets around the house.

Now when I connect to some of the ports around the house the corresponding LED's on the switch provide confirmation of a Gigabit speed connection as you would expect. A few other sockets around the house however are reported back at the switch as only operating at either 10 / 100Mb speed. I'm getting a stable connection to the switch and then onwards to the router / internet but it is not being reported back as a Gigabit connection.

Any idea what could be the cause of some of the ports not being able to establish a Gigabit connection?

Thanks in advance

Mike

droyden · 7 Nov 2009 at 15:00

Is your cabling cat5e? Or (sorry) are your network cards gigabit?

Mike1983 · 7 Nov 2009 at 15:22

droyden said:
Is your cabling cat5e? Or (sorry) are your network cards gigabit?

Yes to both... It's Cat5E rather than Cat6 and just to confirm, some of the other sockets are represented on the switch as a Gigabit connection.

So to confirm,I'm using the same cabling (from the same drum) along with the same patch panel and RJ45 sockets but only some are providing a full speed connection (but can still connect to the internet). I've tested all sockets using the same laptop.

I'm thinking it may be something to do with interference?? But then again as an example I have 2x RJ45 ports in the same wall plate, 1 of them connects at Gigabit speed, the other doesn't. The cables were pulled at the same time from the same drum and are cable tied together so I would have assumed problems would be common to both.

thanks

Caged · 7 Nov 2009 at 15:33

Can you take a photo of how you've punched the cables down into the jacks?

Mike1983 · 7 Nov 2009 at 15:37

Caged said:
Can you take a photo of how you've punched the cables down into the jacks?

Sure thing, will take some snaps the next time I'm over. Are you suspecting anything in particular / common problem?

mdjmcnally · 7 Nov 2009 at 15:38

What happens if you set the NIC on the device you are connecting to the socket at 1Gbps. Does it make a connection or does it fail.

Sin_Chase · 7 Nov 2009 at 15:45

Mike1983 said:
Sure thing, will take some snaps the next time I'm over. Are you suspecting anything in particular / common problem?

As long as you used a Krone tool problems as a result of punching are usually pretty easy to identify.

- No connection
- Intermittant Connection

While it could be possible punching has messed up your ability to obtain GBit speeds you would usually see the above 2 present themselves.

Is the patch panel rated at CAT5e ?

Have you tried a device that connects at 1 GBit in a port that another device is not? (Just to verify its not the hardware)

Caged · 7 Nov 2009 at 15:54

If you've untwisted a load of the pairs for quite a distance before the IDC blocks then you could be getting interference. What wiring standard did you use?

Sin_Chase · 7 Nov 2009 at 15:58

Caged said:
If you've untwisted a load of the pairs for quite a distance before the IDC blocks then you could be getting interference. What wiring standard did you use?

You would have to be a very special candidate to untwist them that much

Dist · 7 Nov 2009 at 16:20

On the connections running at 10/100, check all of the places you have terminated for bad connections. 10/100 only requires 2 pairs, so if some of the wires are incorrectly terminated it will still work, it just wont be able to run at 1000Mb unless every wire has a correct connection at every point it is terminated.

Caged · 7 Nov 2009 at 18:24

Also how did you punch the wires down, did you use a proper tool with a spring etc or those crap plastic ones?