Slow Wired Network at Home

TechnoFreek

Hi,

Can anyone help me diagnose an issue I'm having in my home network please.
Networking is not my strong suit!

My house was built in 2009 and I had it wired with cat5e and a network point put in every room in the house.

All the network cables terminate in the hall into a network switch. An ebay looking job, Newlink 10/100 8 port.

I have fibre with eir. The f2000 modem is in the office. I have one of the ports on the modem connected to the ethernet port in the room which in terms feeds all the other sockets in the house through the Newlink switch.
For info I have the main pc connected directly to the modem and get 75mpbs down 20 up

So even though every room has a socket, the only other ethernet socket really used is the one in the sitting room the connect all the av equipment.

In the sitting room, I have a tP ac1350 router connected to the ethernet socket. Primarily to extend the wifi in the house but it also gets me a few extra ports for the devices there.

I recently got an nvidia shield, and its complaining of the network being too slow when pumping the media files to it.

Not sure, if I am interpreting this correctly but I ran a speed test on the Shield and it was saying it was only getting 10mbps.

So I am just wondering where the bottleneck might be coming from and how to fix. Happy to check other things, test etc if more info required.

Thanks.

banie01

As the switch in place is 10/100 that is a potential bottleneck in that actual throughput will likely be @2/3rds of maximum.

The likelihood is the switch is defaulting to the lower duplex speed.
Assuming all cables and terminations are good, I'd swap the switch for a gigabit capable unit.
That will allow fibre speed to be available to all ports.

irishbuzz

Probably worth doing speedchecks on some of the other ethernet sockets to see if they report similar. If they are all slow then check the speed on the line going into the switch also.

Is the nvidia shield connected via ethernet or wifi?

[EDIT] Ah I see now (after reading banie01's post) that you mentioned Cat5e (1000Mbps) rather than Cat 5 (100Mbps). Your switch (100Mbps) is certainly limiting you then.

TechnoFreek

banie01 wrote: »

As the switch in place is 10/100 that is a potential bottleneck in that actual throughput will likely be @2/3rds of maximum.

The likelihood is the switch is defaulting to the lower duplex speed.
Assuming all cables and terminations are good, I'd swap the switch for a gigabit capable unit.
That will allow fibre speed to be available to all ports.

Ah excellent, thanks for the quick reply.

Any brand, model, specs I should look out for?

Or any gigabit switch is fine?

ED E

irishbuzz wrote: »

[EDIT] Ah I see now (after reading banie01's post) that you mentioned Cat5e (1000Mbps) rather than Cat 5 (100Mbps). Your switch (100Mbps) is certainly limiting you then.

Thats far from certain.

Whats clear is the link is operating at fallback 10Mbps instead of expected 100Mbps. Whether thats internal fraying, bad termination, the switch, the port OR even that the electrician did two ports per cable which means 10Mb each anyways!

Change the switch sure as its not expensive and you should be gig, but its not guaranteed to fix the issue.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-LINK-TL-SG108E-8-Ports-Gigabit-Ethernet/dp/B00K4DS5KU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1537192470&sr=8-3&keywords=TP+8+port

lordlame

€25 in stock @ Powercity

https://powercity.ie/product/SG1008

TechnoFreek

Thanks guys, just ordered a gigabit switch. will report back on once installed.

The bit about the electrican doing two ports per cable got my attention. I don't know if that's the case but I do know he (or his apprentice) made a balls of wiring each ethernet socket back in the day. Wired them in reverse 8 to 1 instead of 1 to 8.

TechnoFreek

lordlame wrote: »

€25 in stock @ Powercity

https://powercity.ie/product/SG1008

Thanks, actually had ordered this exact same one before you linked it!

tsue921i8wljb3

Poor advice given here. You really should have done some diagnosis before spending money on a switch that is unsure of fixing your issues.

Do you have a laptop? If so you should try connecting by Ethernet to each outlet you have. Assuming you are using Windows

Right Click Network Icon on taskbar beside clock click Open Network and Internet Settings

Network Sharing Center
Connections
Click Ethernet to get Ethernet Status
Does speed say 100 Mbps or 10Mbps

Try all ports on the Newlink and the TP link router also.

If you are getting 100Mb connected directly to the Newlink and 10Mb through the cabling in your walls the issue is the cabling, most likely the terminations.

SonicWind

I also have the f2000 eircom modem...its only got 10/100 ethernet ports....upgrading your switch wont do a thing...your limited by the source...

tsue921i8wljb3

SonicWind wrote: »

I also have the f2000 eircom modem...its only got 10/100 ethernet ports....upgrading your switch wont do a thing...your limited by the source...

More nonsense. It actually has 1Gb ports and even if it had not 100Mb ports should not be operating at 10Mb. 100Mb should be fine for his use case.

The high horse brigade

SonicWind wrote: »

I also have the f2000 eircom modem...its only got 10/100 ethernet ports....upgrading your switch wont do a thing...your limited by the source...

No it hasn't, it has gigabit ports. Here is is bridged to my router running at gigabit full duplex

SonicWind

Sorry, my bad, mixed it up with the older model I have... must *break* this one and get one of those new ones...

The high horse brigade

No harm in adding a gigabit switch, it may not fix the issues though.
A few things. Is the tP ac1350 setup as an access point or router? Have you tried bypassing it and plugging direct into the Shield?

irishbuzz

ED E wrote: »

irishbuzz wrote: »

Ah I see now (after reading banie01's post) that you mentioned Cat5e (1000Mbps) rather than Cat 5 (100Mbps). Your switch (100Mbps) is certainly limiting you then.

Thats far from certain.

Whats clear is the link is operating at fallback 10Mbps instead of expected 100Mbps. Whether thats internal fraying, bad termination, the switch, the port OR even that the electrician did two ports per cable which means 10Mb each anyways!

You are indeed correct. I should have said it was certainly limiting his capabilities rather than indicating it was the smoking gun of his slow connection.

Johnboy1951

TechnoFreek wrote: »

Hi,

Can anyone help me diagnose an issue I'm having in my home network please.
Networking is not my strong suit!

My house was built in 2009 and I had it wired with cat5e and a network point put in every room in the house.

All the network cables terminate in the hall into a network switch. An ebay looking job, Newlink 10/100 8 port.

I have fibre with eir. The f2000 modem is in the office. I have one of the ports on the modem connected to the ethernet port in the room which in terms feeds all the other sockets in the house through the Newlink switch.
For info I have the main pc connected directly to the modem and get 75mpbs down 20 up

So even though every room has a socket, the only other ethernet socket really used is the one in the sitting room the connect all the av equipment.

In the sitting room, I have a tP ac1350 router connected to the ethernet socket. Primarily to extend the wifi in the house but it also gets me a few extra ports for the devices there.

I recently got an nvidia shield, and its complaining of the network being too slow when pumping the media files to it.

Not sure, if I am interpreting this correctly but I ran a speed test on the Shield and it was saying it was only getting 10mbps.

So I am just wondering where the bottleneck might be coming from and how to fix. Happy to check other things, test etc if more info required.

Thanks.

You did not state to what device the Shield is connected, nor whether wired or wireless.

If it is connected to the tP ac1350 then it could be that.
If it is connected by wireless then it could be that.
Also as stated, it would easily be a bad connector on any of the wiring in the line back to the F2000.

What is the max speed of your connection? 100Mb/s?


.

TechnoFreek

The Nvidia shield is wired and I connected it directly to the ethernet socket in the sitting room. was getting 10mbps that way.

the ac1350 removed from the equation.

By bad wiring, what would that look like? Anything visible? I can inspect that tonight.

I'll also see if I can get a loan of a laptop to try troubleshoot my way back through the sockets and the newlink switch

Johnboy1951

TechnoFreek wrote: »

The Nvidia shield is wired and I connected it directly to the ethernet socket in the sitting room. was getting 10mbps that way.

the ac1350 removed from the equation.

By bad wiring, what would that look like? Anything visible? I can inspect that tonight.

Damage might be visible, but it could be a bad connection on a wire in a connector.

Bring something like a laptop around to all your ethernet sockets and check what the wired connection speed is.
It might just be a problem with one of them.

The TP AC1350 is capable of 1Gb I think.

TechnoFreek

Thanks for all the help so far. Will do some testing and report back. Perhaps the existing switch is at fault but if not, I don't mind having spend 20 quid to replace it anyway!

tsue921i8wljb3

TechnoFreek wrote: »

The Nvidia shield is wired and I connected it directly to the ethernet socket in the sitting room. was getting 10mbps that way.

the ac1350 removed from the equation.

By bad wiring, what would that look like? Anything visible? I can inspect that tonight.

I'll also see if I can get a loan of a laptop to try troubleshoot my way back through the sockets and the newlink switch

The back of each socket should have a connector block that the individual wires are punched down into. If one of these wires is broken, not connected or connected in the wrong order you will have issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gxNZoPcnP4

Johnboy1951

Amelie Ashy Human wrote: »

The back of each socket should have a connector block that the individual wires are punched down into. If one of these wires is broken, not connected or connected in the wrong order you will have issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gxNZoPcnP4

Did you watch that video?

I would hazzard a guess that the keystone shown would go faulty, if it ever connected properly.
The solid brown wire was not properly punched down!

In fact the video could be used as a demo of how bad workmanship can happen when not paying attention.

tsue921i8wljb3

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Did you watch that video?

I would hazzard a guess that the keystone shown would go faulty, if it ever connected properly.
The solid brown wire was not properly punched down!

In fact the video could be used as a demo of how bad workmanship can happen when not paying attention.

I did not actually. Just searched for something relevant and in HD.

Johnboy1951

Amelie Ashy Human wrote: »

I did not actually. Just searched for something relevant and in HD.

I only wondered if you had spotted it, is all.

Eric Cartman

that newline stuff is cheap as chips, have had that exact model switch cause intermittent packet collision issues for me before , get a netgear GS108T , its 'smart' so semi managed but gigabit , a lot better and well under 100 quid. It will also show you link speeds in a web browser and help (not completely but assist in) diagnosing network cable issues.

tsue921i8wljb3

Eric Cartman wrote: »

that newline stuff is cheap as chips, have had that exact model switch cause intermittent packet collision issues for me before , get a netgear GS108T , its 'smart' so semi managed but gigabit , a lot better and well under 100 quid.

Ah jasus lads it's up to near a hundred now before he has even ascertained what is wrong. He has a couple of devices connected by Ethernet, it's hardly a busy network. Smart switch is complete overkill.

Eric Cartman

Amelie Ashy Human wrote: »

Ah jasus lads it's up to near a hundred now before he has even ascertained what is wrong. He has a couple of devices connected by Ethernet, it's hardly a busy network. Smart switch is complete overkill.

not when you have media devices that could do with QoS and impending faster connections , and its not like I'm telling him to buy a 500 quid layer 3 switch, its 70 odd notes for a much better environment especially with media streaming devices or a NAS.

tsue921i8wljb3

Eric Cartman wrote: »

not when you have media devices that could do with QoS and impending faster connections , and its not like I'm telling him to buy a 500 quid layer 3 switch, its 70 odd notes for a much better environment especially with media streaming devices or a NAS.

I don't particularly agree with you but that is our separate opinions. He really needs to ascertain what his issue is first before adding new hardware that may not solve the problem.

Cuddlesworth

Eric Cartman wrote: »

not when you have media devices that could do with QoS and impending faster connections , and its not like I'm telling him to buy a 500 quid layer 3 switch, its 70 odd notes for a much better environment especially with media streaming devices or a NAS.

He has a 70mb VDSL connection and what is clearly a 10mb link back to it using his in wall cabling.

You don't need QOS on that network, it will do nothing.
You don't need 1 gig backbone on that network, it will do nothing.
You don't know if he needs a new switch, your assuming he does.
A 100mb switch doesn't do collisions. A hub or half duplex connection does.

What he needs to do is check the wiring at both ends of the inwall cable and look at the patch leads connecting to them.

TechnoFreek

Hey guys, bit of a an update.

Got my hands on a laptop with a 10/100 port.I connected directly to the router, just before the switch, just after the switch and connected directly to the sitting room ethernet socket.
All saying 100mbps in the Network and Sharing Centre.

Ran a speed test on both the laptop and nvidia shield tv separately connected to the ethernet socket in the sitting room and through the tp router, 75 up and 20 down. Pretty much the full speed eir provide me with

I did also click out the ethernet sockets to have a look at the wiring at the back, jiggled around, nothing seemed amiss. Didn't check that the colours were wired correctly but can I assumed if I'm getting my full fibre speed, they should be ok?

So i'm not really sure what to say now as all seems in order.

Also, is there a way to test the home lan speed as opposed to the broadband speed?
I get the messages on the shield about slow network when serving media files from my nas. I checked the nas by the way and it says gigabit in its network settings.

The high horse brigade

TechnoFreek wrote: »

Hey guys, bit of a an update.

Got my hands on a laptop with a 10/100 port.I connected directly to the router, just before the switch, just after the switch and connected directly to the sitting room ethernet socket.
All saying 100mbps in the Network and Sharing Centre.

Ran a speed test on both the laptop and nvidia shield tv separately connected to the ethernet socket in the sitting room and through the tp router, 75 up and 20 down. Pretty much the full speed eir provide me with

I did also click out the ethernet sockets to have a look at the wiring at the back, jiggled around, nothing seemed amiss. Didn't check that the colours were wired correctly but can I assumed if I'm getting my full fibre speed, they should be ok?

So i'm not really sure what to say now as all seems in order.

Also, is there a way to test the home lan speed as opposed to the broadband speed?
I get the messages on the shield about slow network when serving media files from my nas. I checked the nas by the way and it says gigabit in its network settings.

It could be the NAS. What make and model is it? To test the NAS speed copy a large file from the NAS to your laptop and take note of the speed it transferring at once it settles. Make sure both are using wired not wireless

Did you do a speedtest on the Shield? You can get the speedtest app for the Shield from the Aptoide store
https://en.aptoide.com/

tsue921i8wljb3

You can test the network using LAN Speed test or iPerf if you're feeling adventurous. You will need two machines to use these tests though.

https://totusoft.com/lanspeed

From what you have said the network seems OK. It might just be a configuration issue. I'm not familiar with the Shield.

TechnoFreek

The high horse brigade wrote: »

It could be the NAS. What make and model is it? To test the NAS speed copy a large file from the NAS to your laptop and take note of the speed it transferring at once it settles. Make sure both are using wired not wireless

Did you do a speedtest on the Shield? You can get the speedtest app for the Shield from the Aptoide store
https://en.aptoide.com/

Yes, i installed the speedtest apk on the shield. Gave me the full eir fibre speed 75mbps.

I will test the nas tonight.

tsue921i8wljb3

It would also help diagnosis if you gave more detail about what you are trying to do.

You say you're trying to play files from your NAS.

Are you using serving software on the NAS like Plex or similar?

What OS is on the NAS?

What app are you using on the Shield to try to play files?

Could you post a MediaInfo report of one of the files that you are trying?

https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo

TechnoFreek

My NAS is a synology Ds216j. Has its own OS

ON the shield I use both plex, or else MX player to play the files.
In the case of Plex the shield is both the client and server and I have it setup to pass through the files with no transcoding.
If using MX Player I have to use a file browser first to navigate to the NAS share.
MediaInfo report attached.

I also connected the laptop in the sitting room and transferred a file from the NAS.

See image attached of transfer speeds. Not sure how I can replicate that with the Shield.

The high horse brigade

There doesn't seem to be any issue with the speed of the NAS, it's close enough to maxing your 100mbit Ethernet (100 ÷ 8 is 12.5 MB/s)

tsue921i8wljb3

TechnoFreek wrote: »

My NAS is a synology Ds216j. Has its own OS

ON the shield I use both plex, or else MX player to play the files.
In the case of Plex the shield is both the client and server and I have it setup to pass through the files with no transcoding.
If using MX Player I have to use a file browser first to navigate to the NAS share.
MediaInfo report attached.

I also connected the laptop in the sitting room and transferred a file from the NAS.

See image attached of transfer speeds. Not sure how I can replicate that with the Shield.

It's not your network at fault anyway. You're getting pretty much top speed in that file transfer.

The file you're trying to play should not be causing issues either. The bitrate is well within your network's capabilities.

Unfortunately I don't use Plex or the Shield so I can't really give you advice on what to try. I imagine it's some configuration issue though.

TechnoFreek

Thanks for all the help and advice guys. Really appreciate it.

I know the thread started off with a 10mbps speedtest issue which seems to be gone for now with no explanation.
Will keep an eye, it was a good exercise for me to understand my home network better.

I watched an 1080p mkv file last night and it streamed perfectly to the nvidia shield last night without a single stutter or network error message appearing. Those higher bitrate files normally give hassle.

I am going to replace the switch anyway, might as well have gigabit all the way through for the devices that do support it and not have a bottleneck half way for no reason.

To keep things interesting though I have a separate, intermittent eir wifi issue which I will post in a new thread for those who fancy another challenge! :pac:

smuggler.ie

Correct me if I am wrong...
Current link in sitting room (max theoretical) is 100Mbps(due to 10/100 switch in use) and is acting as backbone to main(Eir) router. All other(from image look like all 7 ports populated) devices + WiFi devices have to share this 100Mbps link. Theoretically 100/7. If NAS connected to Eir router and multiple devices attempt to stream from it simultaneously + internet traffic.....

In case switch is upgraded to 1000Mbps that backbone will have more room to breath.

ED E wrote: »

the electrician did two ports per cable which means 10Mb each anyways!

I know you can split four(4) pair to two ports using two(2) pair for each and get two 100 Mbps instead of 1000Mbps. How do you do 10 Mbps?

TheChizler

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Correct me if I am wrong...
Current link in sitting room (max theoretical) is 100Mbps(due to 10/100 switch in use) and is acting as backbone to main(Eir) router. All other(from image look like all 7 ports populated) devices + WiFi devices have to share this 100Mbps link. Theoretically 100/7. If NAS connected to Eir router and multiple devices attempt to stream from it simultaneously + internet traffic.....

In case switch is upgraded to 1000Mbps that backbone will have more room to breath.

Or as a quick test connect the NAS directly to the switch and avoid using the Eir box at all for local streaming.

Cuddlesworth

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Correct me if I am wrong...
Current link in sitting room (max theoretical) is 100Mbps(due to 10/100 switch in use) and is acting as backbone to main(Eir) router. All other(from image look like all 7 ports populated) devices + WiFi devices have to share this 100Mbps link. Theoretically 100/7. If NAS connected to Eir router and multiple devices attempt to stream from it simultaneously + internet traffic.....

In case switch is upgraded to 1000Mbps that backbone will have more room to breath.

Its actually pretty hard to max out 100mb through normal household use, let alone when the internet link is 70mb max. You could run a 100+ cloud based users off a office with a 70mb link easy.

TheChizler

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Its actually pretty hard to max out 100mb through normal household use, let alone when the internet link is 70mb max. You could run a 100+ cloud based users off a office with a 70mb link easy.

Streaming video can be very bursty, especially if it's file sharing rather than streaming. That switch wouldn't have very deep queues so wouldn't deal with that very well.

ED E

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Its actually pretty hard to max out 100mb through normal household use, let alone when the internet link is 70mb max. You could run a 100+ cloud based users off a office with a 70mb link easy.

Ahh now Cuddles.

User has a NAS. Standard single disk I/O is about 120-140MB/s now so maxing out GIGABIT is a problem never mind 100Mb (locally).

Also, youtube preloads at 90+ Mb for me in 4k.

smuggler.ie wrote: »

I know you can split four(4) pair to two ports using two(2) pair for each and get two 100 Mbps instead of 1000Mbps. How do you do 10 Mbps?

That was a brainfart. 1000->100 but not 100->10 (100 only uses 2 pair)

smuggler.ie

Kind of had feeling it was bleep

Again, not clear to me: OP states speed about 10Mbps and later provides screenshot of file transfer at 11MB(~88Mbps)
Pointing towards 10/100 backbone link limits.

tsue921i8wljb3

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Kind of had feeling it was bleep

Again, not clear to me: OP states speed about 10Mbps and later provides screenshot of file transfer at 11MB(~88Mbps)
Pointing towards 10/100 backbone link limits.

The switch ports are connected to Ethernet wall jacks that the OP said were in the majority not used.

All the network cables terminate in the hall into a network switch. An ebay looking job, Newlink 10/100 8 port.

So even though every room has a socket, the only other ethernet socket really used is the one in the sitting room the connect all the av equipment.

Cuddlesworth

ED E wrote: »

Ahh now Cuddles.

User has a NAS. Standard single disk I/O is about 120-140MB/s now so maxing out GIGABIT is a problem never mind 100Mb (locally).

Also, youtube preloads at 90+ Mb for me in 4k.



That was a brainfart. 1000->100 but not 100->10 (100 only uses 2 pair)

They will scale up because they can, that's the point of TCP. Even if he was playing the movies while 4 people were streaming, average usage would be 30-40mb over a hour.

donspeekinglesh

Looking at my own network, I've seen no speed problems even though my Shield and EirTV box are connected to a 100mb switch (and 2 other switches and a powerline adapter before getting to the internet). We'd be frequently be streaming Netflix or Plex from the NAS while the TV is recording without problem.

Johnboy1951

donspeekinglesh wrote: »

Looking at my own network, I've seen no speed problems even though my Shield and EirTV box are connected to a 100mb switch (and 2 other switches and a powerline adapter before getting to the internet). We'd be frequently be streaming Netflix or Plex from the NAS while the TV is recording without problem.

I have had 5 separate streams to five different clients served by one 100Mb/s device (most of those in HD) through 100Mb/s switches without any problems.