Crummy CAT5

Soldato
Joined
30 Dec 2003
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London
I've managed to bodge some CAT5 originally laid for phone purposes by BT.

I punched one end into a socket, and at the other end I ran cable from the distribution panel to another socket.

One end has a router on it, and the other end has a 10/100 switch.

If I leave it as is, it links at 100Mb. However, if I ping -t it is mostly <1ms, but occasionally times out. Downloads from fuller.zen.co.uk only max out between 100k and 200k, sometimes even less.

If I shove an ancient 10Mb hub in between the socket and the 10/100 switch, it forces the link down to 10Mb, there's no packet loss and fuller.zen.co.uk maxes out at 360k, which is a lot more like it.

So - is there anything I can do, or am I stuck at 10Mb forever more? 10Mb is still more throughput than my wireless, so it's a (slight) step up.
 
Sone said:
you sure its cat5? could be cat3 if 10mbits all your getting
It could well be. To be honest, it doesn't say anything on it that I can see. It was put in by BT when the house was built in around 1989, and was intended for phone use (we have a PABX system). If it is CAT3, then I don't suppose I'm likely to get a stable 100Mb through it. Still, 10Mb beats a flaky 802.11b!

Is there anyway I can force the connection to 10Mb without shoving a hub in the way to force it? I guess I could with a managed switch, but these devices are all pretty dumb...
 
Last edited:
(this is on Win2K, XP may look a bit different)

find the "properties" box for your LAN card,
click "Configure" button next to card name
locate the "Advanced" tab
in there will be something like "Media Type"
change that from "Auto" to "10BaseTX"

That will force the link to 10Mbs

If you haven't got that option listed then try a cheap 3Com/Intel card.
 
bitslice said:
(this is on Win2K, XP may look a bit different)

find the "properties" box for your LAN card,
click "Configure" button next to card name
locate the "Advanced" tab
in there will be something like "Media Type"
change that from "Auto" to "10BaseTX"

That will force the link to 10Mbs

If you haven't got that option listed then try a cheap 3Com/Intel card.
That's all very well, but as I've said already: At one end is a router, on the other end is a 10/100 switch. Not many network properties on those!
 
tolien said:
Does the router have an option to limit its switch ports to 10Mbps in its web interface?
Not that I've noticed. It's a Draytek 2600plus, if anyone's got one and knows any different!

It has something called Rate Limiting by port, but that can be any multiple of 32, apparently. It has no affect on link rate, from what I can tell.
 
tolien said:
Does the router have an option to limit its switch ports to 10Mbps in its web interface?
How come whenever I make posts I go an prove myself wrong? There's nothing in the web interface, but if I telnet in and type 'port ?', it says I can set each of the four ports to either AN (auto negociate), 100F, 100H, 10F, 10H.

Problem solved!
 
Caged said:
Can't you pull cat5 through the duct that the old stuff's in at the moment?
Don't think it's even in a duct, i think it's just been plastered over. Not really sure how it was done, I was only 3 at the time! I've asked my dad about new cabling before (he built the place), he didn't seem to think it would be possible.
 
csmager said:
That's all very well, but as I've said already: At one end is a router, on the other end is a 10/100 switch. Not many network properties on those!

oops, my bad. sorry.
still, you can plug a 10Mbs link into the port, let it set itself to 10Mbs, then plug your router into that port. :-)

oddly, my draytek 2200w doesn't have a "port" option.
 
bitslice said:
oops, my bad. sorry.
still, you can plug a 10Mbs link into the port, let it set itself to 10Mbs, then plug your router into that port. :-).
Don't think so. It'd just drop the link when you unplug it and renegociate at 100Mbps when you plug it in again.
 
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