Internet

[bplamondon]

Hello,

My roommate and I recently got the Extreme Plus package (the 50MB/s one).  When running some speed tests, we are seeing that his connection - using the cable they gave us (5' cable) in LAN port 1 - is showing the proper speeds.  However everyone else is seeing only a tiny fraction of the speeds.  In fact my connection is barely getting 0.5MB/s which is completely unacceptable.  We tested the cables and there seems to be some difference, and the gateway seems to be assigning settings kinda randomly (half duplex 100mb on using one cable, full duplex 1000mb on another).  

After really a lot about this on various sites, it seems like we are not the only ones with issues with this "router".  I have my own router that we've never had a problem with and it didn't matter about the cables.  On the modem, only he is getting the blue light and I am always getting green.  If anyone has any ideas of ways of resolving this I'd be most appreciative.  I am not too eager to sit on the line with tech support for hours.

Thanks.

[bplamondon]

Sorry, mistaken, its the Ultimate package we have.

[Chris]

I have a few questions first:
1 - what does it say on the cables? cat5, cat5e, cat6?
2 - what network card do you have in your computer?
3 - do you have the latest drivers for your network card?

All 3 of these things could explain why you are not getting the blue light.

[bplamondon]

Thanks Chris, I believe the cables that aren't working are all cat5, so I suppose I can snag another cat6 to test that tonight.

The Network card is an integrated Gigabit card on an ASUS motherboard, but haven't checked for new drivers in awhile.  I'll do that too.

Thanks again for the help.

[Chris]

Yep for gigabit networks you need either cat5e or cat6 cabling. Since you are using cat5 it is probably dropping back to a slower speed. Let me know how the test with the cat6 works out.

[bplamondon]

Turns out it had nothing to do with the gateway or cable, but rather something that was completely messed up on my machine.  I have no idea as to the actual cause but I tried to figure it out for a few hours before giving up and reformatting my machine and reinstalling windows... once that was done I was getting the expected speeds once again.

[Chris]

Thats pretty crazy... Glad you were able to figure it out. Sad that it had to include a reformat...

[RogersErin]

@bplamondon

Glad to hear it all worked out!