Why are the clients on network restricted to 10mbits?

[Plester]

I have a working knowledge of networking, but am far from an expert

I have reworked a LAN at a small business that has 4 clients and a 'server' - not a real server just acting as one in this particular environment - all the machines are running win2k and all have realtek RTL8139a 10/100 nics. They are connected through a SMC 7004BR router. the problem is all the clients are only connecting at 10mbits. The only thing I can think is that the wiring is the problem (it is older existing wiring and some of the runs are probably close to 150'). I am going to run a cable I know is good for 100mbits from the router to the nearest client to see. Also need to check if someone hid a 10mbit hub somewhere along the line.

Curious if anyone has any ideas what might be the issue.

 

[Allanv]

the only time i came accross this is when the cat5 was wired all straight through.

like this ow/o - gw/g - blw / bl - brw/br this gave 10

when i rewired it to

ow/o - gw/bl - blw/g - brw/br this gave me 100

although it could be cable length or a 10mb hub hiding also the colours maybe different where you are

Regards

Allanv

 

[Genx87]

Not familiar with that router but is the LAN side of it 100Mbit?

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

Genx87, yes that is a 100mbit switch in that router.

Plester, I'd certainly examine the wiring, this has been a frequent issue when I've done network upgrades. It seems that many cable folks have no idea that the pairs are significant.

 

[dutrizacd]

I seriously doubt it's the cabling. I've put out 300ft runs of cat 5 and still got 100Mbit connections. There's gotta ge a 10meg hub in that loop somewhere between the PC and the router. How did you figure out it was a 10Mbit connection anyways? I'm assuming you just used the "show icon in taskbar when connected trick" to see what speed it was connecting. As I'm sure you know to your transfer rates and your connection speeds can vary greatly.

If I were you, I'd start tracing the lines.

 

[reicherb]

It would be pretty hard to hide a 10Mb hub that would cause all of the connection to be 10Mb. Everything would have to plug into that hub and then there would only be 1 cable left to plug into the router.

How do you know the connections are 10Mb?

 

[Plester]

the connection icon on every client is 10mbits, but the 'server' which is a few feet from the router and has pre-made cat5 that shipped with the SMC is at 100.

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

Originally posted by: dutrizacd
I seriously doubt it's the cabling. I've put out 300ft runs of cat 5 and still got 100Mbit connections. There's gotta ge a 10meg hub in that loop somewhere between the PC and the router. How did you figure out it was a 10Mbit connection anyways? I'm assuming you just used the "show icon in taskbar when connected trick" to see what speed it was connecting. As I'm sure you know to your transfer rates and your connection speeds can vary greatly. If I were you, I'd start tracing the lines.

Actually, it's most likely the wiring, I guess you didn't bother to read the whole post.

You can usually get a WS connecting at 10mbit with the pairs mis-wired, but you'll never get anything but a few feet of cable to support 100mbit with the pairs mis-wired. With 4 machines, I'm hard pressed to believe there's several 10mbit hubs buried in that <U>vast</U> network...

 

[Alptraum]

I would also recommend checking the pin outs on the wiring.

 

[yak8998]

if it is windows, try setting the connection speeds manually in network properties, ive had a wierd problem with that a few times...

 

[Toff]

Edited for a brain fart.

 

[tjmaxz]

Have you checked if both side are on auto sensing? Sometimes auto sensing would do weird things. Maybe try to manually set both side (switch and the NIC) to 100M