Why can I only connect at 100Mbps (network and computer support gigabit)?

[Paktu]

Last year my university upgraded its network to gigabit ethernet, and since my motherboard supports gigabit LAN, I was able to take advantage of this. I live in a different residence hall this year, and thus far, I can only connect at 100Mbps. In fact, Windows will tell me "a cable is disconnected" if I even try to connect at gigabit, so I have to manually force a 100Mbps connection- it won't even throttle it down for me. Thus far, I've tried using my onboard LAN, a PCI gigabit card, three different cat5e cables, and two different jacks, to no avail. While at first I thought that maybe some of my hardware was faulty, I'm really starting to wonder. Any ideas or suggestions?

 

[tyanni]

Sure they upgraded the entire campus? Often the lines running to each dorm are upgraded, then the switches in the dorms, one by one. Is it possible they haven't gotten to your dorm yet?

 

[tuteja1986]

are you using cat 6 cable ? is your Hub/Switch/Router or what ever your computer connected is RJ45 Gigabit ethernet port.

 

[spidey07]

Leave the card to auto detect.

If it connects at 100/full then that is what the switch port is running at.

Its very doubtful a college campus would provide gigabit to every LAN port.

 

[jack1201]

But not every school have this kind of support. lol

 

[Paktu]

No, every port has gigabit. See here: http://www1.umn.edu/nts/networkupgrade/overview.html

 

[spidey07]

Maybe they turned off 1000 capability?

How about calling support?

 

[Blades]

Try another NIC.. or find another student who has a gigabit nic and is connecting to the campus... Are you the only one who is having problems? Isolate this problem.. is it on your end, or theirs..

 

[uallas5]

Are you the only one in your building/residence having this prob? If not, haul your stuff down the hall (or a long cable the other way) to someone who says they can get 1gbs and see what happens. If no one can get 1gbs, then it's prob the wiring like tuteja suggested.

 

[cmetz]

Paktu, see if you can find a Windows tool (grumble) that can show you the MII capabilities sent to and received from the peer. That will give you a pretty good clue about what the port you are on really supports.