Originally posted by: drebo
Originally posted by: Engineer
So you're saying that if the 2wire modem/router (which runs at 100Mbps) is connected to the Gbit switch, all items connected to the Gbit switch will fall back to 100Mbps, even if they aren't communicating with the 2wire modem/router? If that's the case, the OP has no need to change the "current" setup already running.
No, that's not what I said at all.
What I said was that any device connected to a 10/100 port will only be able to communicate at 10/100 speeds. What that means is that because your computer is plugged in to a 10/100 port, even though the device trying to access it is plugged in to a gigabit port, traffic between the two will only be at 10/100 speeds.
Devices on your gigabit switch, however, will be talking at gigabit speeds when talking to each other. But, because your computer is on the 10/100 switch, when any of those devices communicates with it, the speed will be 10/100, because the traffic does need to pass through the 10/100 switch on the 2wire modem.
If, however, all five devices were plugged in to gigabit switches which were directly connected (i.e. did not pass through the 2wire to get to each other), then all five devices would communicate with each other at gigabit speeds.