How does residential internet wiring work?

[FredWanaker]

Wylie - you are judging the output of the apple tree by one apple. Most likely as soon as your router needs to talk with the 100m device, and if flow control is enabled, it can interfere with your network. We used to see it ALL the time at the state (1500 staff) when someone would plug in an unauthorized 100m switch to a 1gb port on the floor going to the Cisco. The whole VLan would pull down to 100m. We'd take a walk around, find who plugged in an old switch they had to run an extra printer or something, or maybe an old Linksys router they pulugged in to set up a test network and once we removed it, everything went back to 1gb. Modern equipment is less sensitive to it, but I ran into it last year on a network I service. I took your side of the argument and lost to another IT person. As soon as a downstream switch was replaced with a 1gb one, the whole network sped up.

 

[reader2580]

The cable seems to come up to the house and loop right back down into the ground and re-appears in the back where it runs into the house. I'm not sure which leg is which, but one of these goes legs goes to the cable company I think. That means I could restart my wiring here and run new coax straight into the garage right here. I'm surprised these aren't in any kind of locked or weather-resistant box. You would think that water would build up in the conduit or mess up that splice connector, but I live in a desert so maybe they get away with it here.

That is very common for cable connections. I have a connection like that on my house except the house side goes straight into the house. We get a fair bit of rain and snow here and it never affects my cable connection. I have occasionally seen the coax junction in a box, but not common.

 

[FredWanaker]

they appear to be bringing in a heavier cable, maybe RG11 due to distance perhaps, then running it into a filter, and then down to a smaller cable, probably RG6.

 

[ybnormal]

Wylie - you are judging the output of the apple tree by one apple. Most likely as soon as your router needs to talk with the 100m device, and if flow control is enabled, it can interfere with your network. We used to see it ALL the time at the state (1500 staff) when someone would plug in an unauthorized 100m switch to a 1gb port on the floor going to the Cisco. The whole VLan would pull down to 100m. We'd take a walk around, find who plugged in an old switch they had to run an extra printer or something, or maybe an old Linksys router they pulugged in to set up a test network and once we removed it, everything went back to 1gb. Modern equipment is less sensitive to it, but I ran into it last year on a network I service. I took your side of the argument and lost to another IT person. As soon as a downstream switch was replaced with a 1gb one, the whole network sped up.

Fred, you're assuming that the device you found and unplugged was working properly and not defective and spewing packets all over the network. If the dummy employee who plugged it in brought it from home, they may have bought it at Goodswill, etc, because dummy employees are cheap, and there's a reason why it was donated to Goodswill.
I'm also a state employee in IT and I can tell you without a doubt that:
1) users are problematic
2) state purchases are always low bidder for the minimum spec'd requirements

 

[u3b3rg33k]

My IT job would've been gravy if we'd eliminated problem #1!

 

[wyliesdiesels]

Wylie - you are judging the output of the apple tree by one apple. Most likely as soon as your router needs to talk with the 100m device, and if flow control is enabled, it can interfere with your network. We used to see it ALL the time at the state (1500 staff) when someone would plug in an unauthorized 100m switch to a 1gb port on the floor going to the Cisco. The whole VLan would pull down to 100m. We'd take a walk around, find who plugged in an old switch they had to run an extra printer or something, or maybe an old Linksys router they pulugged in to set up a test network and once we removed it, everything went back to 1gb. Modern equipment is less sensitive to it, but I ran into it last year on a network I service. I took your side of the argument and lost to another IT person. As soon as a downstream switch was replaced with a 1gb one, the whole network sped up.

Ummm Im a communications contractor and work on lots of customers networks for a living.

It doesnt work how you claim It does.

Ive got customer networks with cameras that are 100m only with internet service way faster than thay and no issues getting the speed.

The 100Mbps cameras dont pull the network down to 100Mbps....

Im not just talking about 1 apple here. My laptop story was just one example of many more

 

[mikedodge]

A single device shouldn't drag network speed down unless there's something wrong with the device or the way the network is set up.

For the op's original question you said your internet is sketchy when it rains so that's a good indication the cable to your house or an outside connection has problems that your internet or cable company needs to correct.
Have you done a speed test to see what your internet speeds are vs what they're supposed to be? If they're close why bother running all sorts of new cable? Run a new drop to your TV and call it done. If the speeds are way off get your internet company to check it while they're fixing the other problem. If the coax cable your modem is connected to is still running through a splitter block that you have access to and nothing else in the house uses cable anymore you might want to get a single coupler like these to connect the coax to the modem directly to the incoming one and avoid the splitter all together.

Realistically in a normal size house it's not going to make much difference where the modem is but you could always try different configurations and running the cabling loose first to see if there does happen to be spots for the equipment that works better.

 

[jkeyser14]

This is false. you dont need special equipment to go over 1Gbps. just need a router that can aggregate 2 WAN ports and they do exist in the consumer grade devices....



This is absolutely totally false. a printer or older TV with a 10/100Mbps NIC will not cause the rest of the network to run @ 100Mbps.... that doesnt even make logical sense, as a host running @ 100Mbps has no way to tell a 1Gbps switch to change all its ports to 100Mbps speed.... absolutely false statement....


its not a special tool. its a compression connector tool and can be bought at home depot...

Search Results for klein compression tool at The Home Depot

Search Results for klein compression tool at The Home Depot

www.homedepot.com

(you really seem to like the word special lol.....)

That's not true. It depends on the switch. It isn't uncommon for older switches to limit the whole network based on the slowest device. Any equipment built in the last 10 years shouldn't have this problem though.

 

[FredWanaker]

ummmm you guys are wrong. I doubt if any of you have worked in a 250,00 person Enterprise on a 15 year basis. I have.

Thank you

jkeyser14​

 

[u3b3rg33k]

That's not true. It depends on the switch. It isn't uncommon for older switches to limit the whole network based on the slowest device. Any equipment built in the last 10 years shouldn't have this problem though.

I've not seen that behavior on a 2950G, and that stuff is so old it should've been removed from service a long time ago. I mean, can you imagine a campus wide VLAN being pulled down to 100Mb/s port speed because of ONE device?

 

[jkeyser14]

I've not seen that behavior on a 2950G, and that stuff is so old it should've been removed from service a long time ago. I mean, can you imagine a campus wide VLAN being pulled down to 100Mb/s port speed because of ONE device?

It was an old hardware limitation on many switches. Just look at 802.11b as an example with wifi. A single slow device could drag down anything connected to the AP. Hence why the standard was eventually updated

 

[wyliesdiesels]

the problem here is fred claimed and implied this happens on newer equipment and networks. it doesnt. none of my clients have any old hardware that suffers from that problem and i have not seen hardware of that vintage anywhere out here. i doubt most home users have any such equipment either so his points are moot

 

[dave*99]

After reading this thread I think I was wrong about my cable connections. Check my logic.

Actually the utility box on my house is probably for the phone line. I don't have a landline phone, and I have already deleted a couple phone jacks in the house. But if I'm right does this mean I could switch from cable internet to DSL? Is one have a better ping than the other for any reason?

The cable seems to come up to the house and loop right back down into the ground and re-appears in the back where it runs into the house. I'm not sure which leg is which, but one of these goes legs goes to the cable company I think. That means I could restart my wiring here and run new coax straight into the garage right here. I'm surprised these aren't in any kind of locked or weather-resistant box. You would think that water would build up in the conduit or mess up that splice connector, but I live in a desert so maybe they get away with it here.

Does that sound about right?

The 2 coax cables are connected to a grounding block. As you can see the coax is bonded to the ground rod likely associated with the electric service. There are reasons why it was installed there. I suspect coax continues from that point underground because that was the perceived easier way to get to the destination at the time.

 

[u3b3rg33k]

It was an old hardware limitation on many switches. Just look at 802.11b as an example with wifi. A single slow device could drag down anything connected to the AP. Hence why the standard was eventually updated

wifi is not comparable to switches. wifi is (was) comparable to hubs. honestly it still amazes me that wifi works as well as it does. it's also very amusing to me that you'll see ax WAPs with single gig uplinks.

 

[ybnormal]

the problem here is fred claimed and implied this happens on newer equipment and networks. it doesnt. none of my clients have any old hardware that suffers from that problem and i have not seen hardware of that vintage anywhere out here. i doubt most home users have any such equipment either so his points are moot

hell, a lot of network printers are still 100Mb and they don't magically tell the copper wiring to start running at 100Mb for everyone just because they got plugged in

 

[thebmrust]

OP: If you want to hard wire your rooms w CAT6, do it. Ethernet isn’t too expensive and the long term benefit can outweigh the trouble installing it. If you have access to every room via crawl space, put a drop or two in every room and home run it to a communications closet and put in a small rack with all your equipment.

“dumb hubs” Best Buy still sells them. Our local store has them in stock now.

10/100/1000 making all devices run at the lowest speed. It’s plausible. But it could also be the way the switch is configured more than the node. It appears several techs have never experienced that phenomenon and only one has. Not saying impossible becuse we all experience different things in life. I’ve never been hit by lightning, but I’m sure someone has.

My thought is that I don’t know about very many consumer gigabit printers. If all networks dropped to the slowest speed of the slowest device, there’s no reason to have gigabit switches or devices. Heck, a legacy 10/100 printer connected to a GB print server would still see a device at 10/100 completely rendering the print server useless at max speed. Sort of a false advertising issue.

I am not a Cisco (or equivalent) tech, maybe that’s where the configuration issue is at. Configuring a switch or router to downgrade speeds. Because you know, legacy devices exist. Some networks are more sensitive to packet loss and QoS matters.

Not everything should be wireless… so w hard wire if you have it.

 

[u3b3rg33k]

“dumb hubs” Best Buy still sells them. Our local store has them in stock now.

link?

 

[dcg9381]

when was the last time you saw a hun sold at the store?

been years since i saw a hub sold in any store

I think you mean "hub" - I've go a few of them (shop) that do POE.

I run a Cisco Catalyist 2960-X switch and CAT6. These switches are EOL/Support, looks like you can buy them used market for <$300. It's dual power supply, auto-negotiates speed (if you set it up that way) - 10, 100, 1000 Mb/s, or 10 Gb/s. It's a great deal if you need POE a lot of POE drops. I've measured it at about 60 watts currently.

Digging through stuff, I found I could disable multi-cast on the wifi side.

 

[reader2580]

The 2 coax cables are connected to a grounding block. As you can see the coax is bonded to the ground rod likely associated with the electric service. There are reasons why it was installed there. I suspect coax continues from that point underground because that was the perceived easier way to get to the destination at the time.

I think the reason the coax from the cable company terminates there is because the electricity and phone are also there. Homeowners typically like having all utilities in one place rather than having utilities in random spots all over the house.

 

[derek_m]

A lot in this thread is definitely over my head....but I understand the basics. Recommendations on what coax and connectors to use when running new line? I want to relocate the modem from my attached garage to the living room, but would prefer not to have the ISP run the cable or drill holes in my floor. What was previously installed looks like hell.

 

[ybnormal]

I think the reason the coax from the cable company terminates there is because the electricity and phone are also there. Homeowners typically like having all utilities in one place rather than having utilities in random spots all over the house.

partially. it depends on how the neighborhood is also wired up.
my cable comes in from underground and across the street, and demarcs at the southeast corner of the house
my phoneline also demarcs there but I don't know where it's being fed from, it's also underground.
my back yard neighbor is in an older part of the sub-division (built early 70s) so there are powerlines and poles running down the fence line and he gets his cable and power from the pole with a meter on his house, where as my 10yr newer neighborhood (built early 80s) we all have meters out front at the property line and all have the same provider, so all our power appears to be trenched in at street level.

A lot in this thread is definitely over my head....but I understand the basics. Recommendations on what coax and connectors to use when running new line? I want to relocate the modem from my attached garage to the living room, but would prefer not to have the ISP run the cable or drill holes in my floor. What was previously installed looks like hell.

I left my demarc outside but had them run a new coax down the side of the house to my back office where I drilled a new hole and properly sealed and grommeted it from the weather. you can either terminate at the back side of a connection or get fancy with a recessed box like this

Search Results for recessed coax at The Home Depot

Search Results for recessed coax at The Home Depot

www.homedepot.com

 

[dave*99]

I think the reason the coax from the cable company terminates there is because the electricity and phone are also there. Homeowners typically like having all utilities in one place rather than having utilities in random spots all over the house.

I don't think the code making body consulted with homeowners to learn their preferences when the wrote the requirement for bonding into the NEC

Tune In to the Requirements of Art. 820

Tune In to the Requirements of Art. 820 Overcome poor reception from the AHJ by knowing the inside track with limited-energy coax cable installations It's easy to think the scope...

www.ecmweb.com

If you put the services in random spots all over the house you get to run lots of bonding wire.

 

[u3b3rg33k]

this is what will drop it to 100m if you add a 100m device on the network. This is to prevent buffer overflows when a 100m device gets involved in a 1gb conversation. This is the default setting.

this is the setting that intel says can cause what you're talking about on a per-port basis. probably because gigabit is intended to be an auto-negotiate only protocol.

Wylie - you are judging the output of the apple tree by one apple. Most likely as soon as your router needs to talk with the 100m device, and if flow control is enabled, it can interfere with your network. We used to see it ALL the time at the state (1500 staff) when someone would plug in an unauthorized 100m switch to a 1gb port on the floor going to the Cisco. The whole VLan would pull down to 100m. We'd take a walk around, find who plugged in an old switch they had to run an extra printer or something, or maybe an old Linksys router they pulugged in to set up a test network and once we removed it, everything went back to 1gb. Modern equipment is less sensitive to it, but I ran into it last year on a network I service. I took your side of the argument and lost to another IT person. As soon as a downstream switch was replaced with a 1gb one, the whole network sped up.

vlan's don't have a defined speed. honestly it sounds like someone has the switch misconfigured and is allowing a problem device to cause issues.

I worked at a place that had 14,000 employees, god knows how many visitors, and visitors had access to physical ethernet ports. Never did I see a problem like what you're reporting. we even went so far as to remove the old physical guest network (a waste of money) and do it all with ISE profiling.

Cisco Nexus 9000 Series NX-OS Quality of Service Configuration Guide, Release 7.x - Configuring Link Level Flow Control [Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches]

Configuring Link Level Flow Control

www.cisco.com

 

[dcg9381]

Recommendations on what coax and connectors to use when running new line?

For co-ax RG6, you want compression fittings, whole deal tool and all under $20:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087BT4GRC/?tag=atomicindus08-20

CAT6 is a pain in the *** until you get used to it. Pay attention to wire gauge. You can get a gauge of CAT6 will only work in punch downs.
The connectors I use have a "guide" that you run the wire through before fitting it into the connector. You can also do connectors that actually are open at the ends and then you trim wire to fit.
Here's what I like to use. The little plastic piece is a guide that sets the wire up before you crimp it down.
Youtube has great videos on how to do this proficiently.

 

[FredWanaker]

Xfinity / Comcast here used to hire contractors who put the cable about an inch or two deep in the lawn. They ran from the box to the closest point on the house then stapled to the house and ran around to wherever, and drilled a hole thru the wall. Two years ago I ran PVC conduit from the tower where the cable comes out of the ground to the same spot that Comcast ran cable to in 1991. From there I wired the house using the same holes, boxes etc., that I put in years ago. I pulled all new cable. When Comcast came out, they said they would have been happy to dig in PVC conduit and new cable. The difference is that they would have run 100' to the other side of the house where the electric and phone, gas come in now, and then run from there. That includes tunneling under the driveway, and cutting concrete to get the conduit to the house. I said just use what I put in, which they did. For us the issue really is that when cable was run to these homes 5 years after they were built, the towers were put on the opposite side of the yard as the other utilities.

 

[theoldwizard1]

At this point in time, with phones, IOT devices, lots of entertainment devices all preferring to be wireless I think you could save yourself a lot of hassle and likely expense if you just invested in good wifi technology. I do believe wireless technology will continue to dominate in the future and that wired technology will be for niche uses in residential likely limited to back haul configurations.

Yep ! My house was built in the 50s. Added cable to the living room, all the bedrooms and kitchen. A few years later, added Cat5 to 2 of the bedrooms (kids in college). The coax is only used to go to my modem/router/wireless gateway. WiFi is the way to go ! I can run 3 video streams, no problem.

30 years ago if you told me that they could run streaming video over the Internet, I would have laughed. 20 years ago, if you told me you could wirelessly stream inside your house, I would have laughed twice as hard !

 

[u3b3rg33k]

For co-ax RG6, you want compression fittings, whole deal tool and all under $20:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087BT4GRC/?tag=atomicindus08-20

CAT6 is a pain in the *** until you get used to it. Pay attention to wire gauge. You can get a gauge of CAT6 will only work in punch downs.
The connectors I use have a "guide" that you run the wire through before fitting it into the connector. You can also do connectors that actually are open at the ends and then you trim wire to fit.
Here's what I like to use. The little plastic piece is a guide that sets the wire up before you crimp it down.
Youtube has great videos on how to do this proficiently.

I will re-iterate my strong disdain for manually crimping ends. if you aren't a professional, HAM, or electrical engineer, you won't know WHY you're doing what you're doing gives you a good or a bad connection. Plus, it is slow, and frustrating to do (and do right).

punch-down and use patch cords. it's less work, faster, and possibly cheaper, especially if you're doing faceplates and a patch panel. or just measure and buy patch cords.

Monoprice Cat6 1ft Blue Patch Cable, UTP, 24AWG, 550MHz, Pure Bare Copper, Snagless RJ45, Flexboot Series Ethernet Cable - Monoprice.com

Save the time and hassle of building Ethernet cables by using fixed length UTP Cat6 Ethernet Network Cables from Monoprice™!The FLEXboot™ Series of cables feature a thinner cable boot prot

www.monoprice.com

a 50' cat6 patch cord is only $15.
a 12 pack of 7' cat6 patch cords is $30. $2.50 each. what is your time worth? what are your fingers worth? how much is realizing YFIU worth after 10 hours of wondering why your device is cranky?

at a minimum you should have and use one of these testers if you're terminating wire in any fashion.

 

[dcg9381]

punch-down and use patch cords. it's less work, faster, and possibly cheaper, especially if you're doing faceplates and a patch panel. or just measure and buy patch cords.
a 50' cat6 patch cord is only $15.
a 12 pack of 7' cat6 patch cords is $30. $2.50 each. what is your time worth? what are your fingers worth? how much is realizing YFIU worth after 10 hours of wondering why your device is cranky?

I completely agree with buying a patch cord over building a cord. And it's not only the ends and crip tools you'll need for CAT6, you need to test every cable. One crossed or dead wire can drive you crazy with unpredictable network results.

There are circumstances where I can't easily do a punch down and have to put a male end on the CAT6.

 

[theoldwizard1]

CAT6 is a pain in the *** until you get used to it. Pay attention to wire gauge. You can get a gauge of CAT6 will only work in punch downs.

TRUE ! Some Cat6 uses 24 AWG wire, some 22 or 23. You want the heavier (smaller number). They do sell "patch cord" that are supposedly Cat6 but use 28 AWG.

 

[JackOfDiamonds]

OK, I have decided the best thing is to do is run a new run of coax and put the router in a different location.

I will disconnect the coax cable from this filter here, run it further up the wall and punch it into the attic over the garage. Then I will run it across the garage attic, down a utility chase to the crawl-space, halfway across the house, and have it pop back up in a central closet. I will put the cable modem and Orbi hub there in the central closet...I haven't figured out how I'll get power in there yet...and then run ethernet back down to the crawlspace and have it pop back up wherever else I need it in the house.

To do this, I need to be able to terminate coax cable. Is it too hard/expensive for a non-professional to do?

I already have a crimp tool and some plugs I used a long time ago for CAT5, and it worked then at least. But I guess I could also buy 50ft or 100ft patch cables and install those. Patch cables are stranded and I thought installed wiring was supposed to be solid though.

 

[dcg9381]

TRUE ! Some Cat6 uses 24 AWG wire, some 22 or 23. You want the heavier (smaller number). They do sell "patch cord" that are supposedly Cat6 but use 28 AWG.

I don't think you can get 22 gauge into anything other than a punch down. Just FYI.

 

[ybnormal]

I will re-iterate my strong disdain for manually crimping ends. if you aren't a professional, HAM, or electrical engineer, you won't know WHY you're doing what you're doing gives you a good or a bad connection. Plus, it is slow, and frustrating to do (and do right).

punch-down and use patch cords. it's less work, faster, and possibly cheaper, especially if you're doing faceplates and a patch panel. or just measure and buy patch cords.

Monoprice Cat6 1ft Blue Patch Cable, UTP, 24AWG, 550MHz, Pure Bare Copper, Snagless RJ45, Flexboot Series Ethernet Cable - Monoprice.com

Save the time and hassle of building Ethernet cables by using fixed length UTP Cat6 Ethernet Network Cables from Monoprice™!The FLEXboot™ Series of cables feature a thinner cable boot prot

www.monoprice.com

a 50' cat6 patch cord is only $15.
a 12 pack of 7' cat6 patch cords is $30. $2.50 each. what is your time worth? what are your fingers worth? how much is realizing YFIU worth after 10 hours of wondering why your device is cranky?

at a minimum you should have and use one of these testers if you're terminating wire in any fashion.

I HATE making cables. I'll buy them pre-made any day of the week or pay someone else who knows WTH they're doing to do the job right

 

[ybnormal]

OK, I have decided the best thing is to do is run a new run of coax and put the router in a different location.

I will disconnect the coax cable from this filter here, run it further up the wall and punch it into the attic over the garage. Then I will run it across the garage attic, down a utility chase to the crawl-space, halfway across the house, and have it pop back up in a central closet. I will put the cable modem and Orbi hub there in the central closet...I haven't figured out how I'll get power in there yet...and then run ethernet back down to the crawlspace and have it pop back up wherever else I need it in the house.

To do this, I need to be able to terminate coax cable. Is it too hard/expensive for a non-professional to do?

I already have a crimp tool and some plugs I used a long time ago for CAT5, and it worked then at least. But I guess I could also buy 50ft or 100ft patch cables and install those. Patch cables are stranded and I thought installed wiring was supposed to be solid though.

not really. strip the insulation off the end, make it clean, put on the new threaded connector and crimp it on

 

[ybnormal]

Yep ! My house was built in the 50s. Added cable to the living room, all the bedrooms and kitchen. A few years later, added Cat5 to 2 of the bedrooms (kids in college). The coax is only used to go to my modem/router/wireless gateway. WiFi is the way to go ! I can run 3 video streams, no problem.

30 years ago if you told me that they could run streaming video over the Internet, I would have laughed. 20 years ago, if you told me you could wirelessly stream inside your house, I would have laughed twice as hard !

that would have been 1992, so when Al Gore invented it it was called the Inter-tubes

 

[Wrench97]

I think the reason the coax from the cable company terminates there is because the electricity and phone are also there. Homeowners typically like having all utilities in one place rather than having utilities in random spots all over the house.

That and the required grounding before it enters the building.

 

[Max]

ummmm you guys are wrong. I doubt if any of you have worked in a 250,00 person Enterprise on a 15 year basis. I have.

All it takes is one existence proof that contradicts your theory and you're wrong. Wylie has given you two, and I can see the same behavior on my network. How do you explain that it works for us. Magic?

Also, when you say stuff like "I've worked in..." it doesn't suddenly make you right. I had a technical discussion with a colleague once and he said "well I've been designing [fill in the blank] for for 20 years so I am right". I told him that I'd been designing the same stuff for 25 years, but it didn't make me right - what did was the technical data behind my position.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

All it takes is one existence proof that contradicts your theory and you're wrong. Wylie has given you two, and I can see the same behavior on my network. How do you explain that it works for us. Magic?

Also, when you say stuff like "I've worked in..." it doesn't suddenly make you right. I had a technical discussion with a colleague once and he said "well I've been designing [fill in the blank] for for 20 years so I am right". I told him that I'd been designing the same stuff for 25 years, but it didn't make me right - what did was the technical data behind my position.

my laser printer is 10/100mbps. its connected to a 4 port netgear gigabit switch on the printer table that then daisy chains to an 8 port gigabit switch on my which in turn connects to my peplink firewall/router. my laptop is hardwired to this same 8 port switch. my internet speed is 600/15 (i get 720/18 with speed boost) and guess what. when i do a speed test i get results of 720/18.

so tell me how my laser printer linked @ 100Mbps is dragging my entire network down to 100Mbps when i get speed test results 7 times that.... it isnt... that line of logic is completely flawed....

 

[FredWanaker]

My understanding is If it has buffer overflows. TCP/IP packets have to re-transmit if they are dropped. One might see a link at Igb but anytime traffic to the 100m device is involved where it creates a buffer overflow in any port involved, then packets have to be re-transmitted. The general rule is when you are setting up a 1GB network try to keep everything 1GB together, and if you have 100m devices try to keep them downstream on a separate switch or better replace them. I had a 24 port netgear switch at a client's business. One port went to an office in the back to a 10/100 switch. On that switch there were two printers. The person who worked in that office had a separate network cable that came back to another port on the 24 port switch. Three servers also went into the 24 port 1gb switch, The client complained that at times the network was slow. One day a friend of one of the co-owners came in with some high end network analysis equipment that I cannot afford. The first thing he did was replace that 10/100 switch with a 1gb switch. The network problem went away. I know it doesn't make sense but I saw it at the state too so I didn't argue but the slowdowns went away. They transfer some very large autocad files. They also had to upgrade their plotters. Thinking it thru, probably a printer would be less prone to creating a buffer overflow because it isn't typically printing 24/7. A switch would be handling traffic 24/7.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

My understanding is If it has buffer overflows. TCP/IP packets have to re-transmit if they are dropped. One might see a link at Igb but anytime traffic to the 100m device is involved where it creates a buffer overflow in any port involved, then packets have to be re-transmitted. The general rule is when you are setting up a 1GB network try to keep everything 1GB together, and if you have 100m devices try to keep them downstream on a separate switch or better replace them. I had a 24 port netgear switch at a client's business. One port went to an office in the back to a 10/100 switch. On that switch there were two printers. The person who worked in that office had a separate network cable that came back to another port on the 24 port switch. Three servers also went into the 24 port 1gb switch, The client complained that at times the network was slow. One day a friend of one of the co-owners came in with some high end network analysis equipment that I cannot afford. The first thing he did was replace that 10/100 switch with a 1gb switch. The network problem went away. I know it doesn't make sense but I saw it at the state too so I didn't argue but the slowdowns went away. They transfer some very large autocad files. They also had to upgrade their plotters. Thinking it thru, probably a printer would be less prone to creating a buffer overflow because it isn't typically printing 24/7. A switch would be handling traffic 24/7.

based on what metric? what were they doing when this occurred? relying on this kind of vague info from a client with little to no networking experience to make a conclusion is a fools errand. the client doesnt have testing tools and had no way of actually determining the entire network is slow vs the one task they were doing was slow.... totally flawed logic here

when someone tells me their network is slow the first thing i do is a constant ping to an outside address, and speed tests. if the network is indeed slow, it will show up on both tests. remember now, i do work for LECs and CLECs and deal with this **** everyday.... people often claim the network or internet is slow and when drilled down into it, its actually not the network but instead the host or the wifi due to interference.....

 

[Max]

My understanding is If it has buffer overflows. TCP/IP packets have to re-transmit if they are dropped. One might see a link at Igb but anytime traffic to the 100m device is involved where it creates a buffer overflow in any port involved, then packets have to be re-transmitted. The general rule is when you are setting up a 1GB network try to keep everything 1GB together, and if you have 100m devices try to keep them downstream on a separate switch or better replace them. I had a 24 port netgear switch at a client's business. One port went to an office in the back to a 10/100 switch. On that switch there were two printers. The person who worked in that office had a separate network cable that came back to another port on the 24 port switch. Three servers also went into the 24 port 1gb switch, The client complained that at times the network was slow. One day a friend of one of the co-owners came in with some high end network analysis equipment that I cannot afford. The first thing he did was replace that 10/100 switch with a 1gb switch. The network problem went away. I know it doesn't make sense but I saw it at the state too so I didn't argue but the slowdowns went away. They transfer some very large autocad files. They also had to upgrade their plotters. Thinking it thru, probably a printer would be less prone to creating a buffer overflow because it isn't typically printing 24/7. A switch would be handling traffic 24/7.

Your original contention was that if you put a 10 Mb or 100 Mb device on a 1 Gb ethernet that you be limited to 10 or 100 Mb. This is demonstrably false.

So far as in some cases bad/cheap/very old HW causes network problems - I 100% agree. Still a single case doesn’t establish a rule when it’s clear that most of the time the “rule” doesn’t exist.

I once had a router that would cause mail server errors if you sent more than about 150 characters in your email. Long distribution lists also it off. It took a lot of debugging (multiple weeks with a very unhappy wife that did not like email problems) and some luck to find the issue. The end result was a new router, a vow to never buy that brand again, and a trip to the sledge hammer for the old router.

BTW, I went to elementary in Yuba City at Tierra Buena. Small world. I haven’t been back in a long time, but google maps shows it has really changed.