Octopus Overlords

I recently ran a 30' ethernet cable (shielded Cat6A from Cable Matters) to my bedroom. this one. It goes through a foot-thick wall, across about five feet outside, and through another foot-thick wall. There, it connects to my laptop.

In the living room on my main PC. 800 down. I run one on my laptop - 90 down. I switched the cable to an older PC in the bedroom. 90 down. I ran another test on the living room PC - 850 down.

Both connect to the same router and same modem with the same settings with no other devices (switches, etc) in between. Both systems in the bedroom have adapters capable of greater than 800 down.

I updated any and all drivers and firmware, rebooted everything from the router on down, and got the same results.

It took a bleeping hour to get that cable through the walls, secured, and caulked in so it wouldn't leak air. I'd rather not have to replace it, so I'm hoping to troubleshoot other causes first.

Any ideas?

Update: It's not the cable. I hauled my laptop into the living room and hooked it to the same cable that gave me the 800 - and got sub-100.

Windows shows my link speed as 100/100.

how old is the laptop / what network card does it have?

Probably the laptop NIC or drivers/software but I'd do a few more speed tests just to have an adequate sample size before replacing any hardware.

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Wed Sep 27, 2023 1:34 pm how old is the laptop / what network card does it have?

Killer E2500 Gigabit Ethernet Controller

https://community.intel.com/t5/Ethernet ... -p/1479298

The reason why the Intel Killer Performance Suite latest driver version is causing an issue on system, that is because the Intel® Killer Performance Suite includes drivers which do not support the Legacy Intel® Killer™ Wireless and Ethernet products from the list below:

Killer Wireless-AC 1435
Killer Wireless-AC 1525
Killer Wireless-AC 1535
Killer E2200
Killer E2400
Killer E2500
But the Killer Networking Software, which is also included in the Intel® Killer Performance Suite, can be installed on the systems with Legacy Intel® Killer™ Wireless and Ethernet products which includes your Intel Killer E2500 Ethernet adapter.

May have to do some driver rollback tango...

Semi-solved. It turns out that my network adapter was set to 100Mb instead of auto-negotiate. I've never even heard of said setting, so I have no idea what set it that way. The system has been wiped and everything reinstalled from scratch since it came to me, so it isn't a leftover.

Anyway, I'm now getting about 200-250 down. It's not the 800 from the other room, but it's still a lot faster (and fast enough for what I need to do - I could probably spend the rest of the week getting it faster, but there aren't all that many things that require more than 200 down. I got the speed I did because 1) it's cheaper than the next lower tier, and 2) it's the first tier in which Comcast boosts the upload speed above 10Mbps, which is obscene. Even at 900 down (theoretical speed), I only get 20 up.

You need yo make sure your roter is up high, then make sure the cable goes down right to the end.
This way you make sure all of your internets flow downhill to get the most speed.

Huh. This explains much.

I always blamed Comcast for my upstream being slower.

No worries. Its a hidden secret. Same happens with electricity. Thats why the fastest electricity comes from poles!

Punisher wrote: ↑Sun Oct 01, 2023 8:55 pm You need yo make sure your roter is up high, then make sure the cable goes down right to the end.
This way you make sure all of your internets flow downhill to get the most speed.

And here I was thinking his cable was backwards.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Mon Oct 02, 2023 9:44 am

Punisher wrote: ↑Sun Oct 01, 2023 8:55 pm You need yo make sure your roter is up high, then make sure the cable goes down right to the end.
This way you make sure all of your internets flow downhill to get the most speed.

And here I was thinking his cable was backwards.

Funny story this reminds me of.
I used to be a mobile tech from Staples. I used to go do onsights for customers for tech support.
I went one place for a printer replacement.
I show up, look at the printer and ask if I can try fixing it. He says that Best Buy had been out 3 times and couldn't fix it and he was done with them. I tild him I jad a new printer if it didn't work.
I took a look, made a small adjustment and it wirked. Took less then a minute.
Turns out the BB guys had somehow put the USB cable into the ethernet port. I was shocked.
Customer was happy he didn't need a new printer.

Sometimes, I swear the wifi setup is way more complicated than it had to be for printers.

As a part of my senior tech support routine, I've had TWO guys, with laserjet Pros and Deskjet Pros came to me wanting to print, and they both said they can't be bothered to setup the wifi (since they have the repeat the whole thing at home) and just want a wire to plug into the printer... even from a phone. And they actually got a dolly and hauled their printer to us to look at.

Wow. My printer finds my wifi and logs in all by itself when I install it or lose power. The only thing I have to do is enter the password...and thats only if my wifi has one set.