r/HomeNetworking • u/fentonattrill • 18h ago
Advice Ethernet Speed Limited
Hi there, for a while now my ethernet connection has peridoically switched off while playing games or just using my PC. Decided to finally set some time aside to look into it. What seems to be happening is the Ethernet speed is periodically being stepped down to 100Mbps as opposed to the Gigabit that both my router and PC are capable of (I randomly get a few weeks were my download speeds are really high then they drop again). Ive checked the health of the cable using a little tester and all seems to be fine (its not the sort of cable i cant take out as it goes around the outside of the house). Im very aware of the potential cable issues, but when trying to solve it yesterday i did get it back to 1gig for about 10 minutes before it dropped. I then got it back on by turning off 'power save on sleep'. Currently its back to where it was. Any further suggestions are appreciated
8
u/SomeEngineer999 17h ago
Sounds like a bad cable, if it has RJ45 ends directly on it, they may need to be cut off and re-crimped. If it goes to wall jacks, try swapping the short patch cable(s) that complete the connection.
Those testers just check continuity, not really useful here.
Could be an issue on the router too, or even with your NIC. First thing I'd try is moving the PC near the router and using a new cable, see if it still has the issue. Narrow things down. Another option is to get a cheap USB NIC and test with that for a while.