Gigabit LAN only 100Mbps [Solved]

[bobbee]

I'm not getting the lan speed that I need.

Hardware info

I have a GB motherboard with onboard GB lan. GA78LMT
The other machine is windows 7 with GB lan card
The wired switch is a net Gear Prosafe 110TP GB switch.

Net tools read out

sudo ethtool eth0
[sudo] password for mxu:
Settings for eth0:
Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
Supported pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
Advertised pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Link partner advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Link partner advertised pause frame use: No
Link partner advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Speed: 100Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: MII
PHYAD: 0
Transceiver: internal
Auto-negotiation: on
Supports Wake-on: pumbg
Wake-on: d
Current message level: 0x00000033 (51)
drv probe ifdown ifup
Link detected: yes

So to me it looks like it recognizes GB lan capability

However the lan manager will only connect at 100Mbps
That is what t says on the lan info.
If I go in and set to Manual GB, I get no network connection. Everything times out.

File transfer speeds show 10 MB/s which corresponds to the lower speed.

I have checked the bios and it looks good.

I have had this connection at GB speeds before installing mx.

Any Ideas on as to why It won't work, and how to fix it?

[Adrian]

Link partner advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full

It doesn't advertise 1000baseT, I wonder if the problem is at the router since it look like the driver can do 1000Mbps.

[bobbee]

just bellow the 100 it says 1000

My switch has color coded lights, yellow is 100 and green is 1000.

The other computer shows green, this one shows yellow. When I unplug and replug it slowly flashes green before going to yellow.
So it is seems to be trying to connect at 1000.
The other computer shows green.
I tried a different cable and the same result.

I'm thinking maybe a driver thing too.

Is there a way to try another driver?

===============
I'm looking and where it does not say 1000 is by the link partner advertising.

that could be the issue. I don't know if that is a hardware thing or if it can be manually set.

firmware smart lan diagnostics look ok

[timkb4cq]

Code: Select all

Link partner advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 

I believe that means the network device it's trying to link to is only advertising 10baseT & 100baseT.

Your switch allows you (through a web interface at 192.168.0.239) to set each port to a particular speed (or auto-negotiation). Have you tried another port, or tried to set the port your MX machine is plugged into to 1000 baseT ?

[thomasl]

This happened to me as well and after a few fruitless software-based attempts to solve the problem it turned to be an old Cat5E cable between router and PC. So make sure the cable (and the plugs) are up to the job.

[bobbee]

Thank you Tim and Thomas

I tried logging into the switch with the ip address, it did not work, I will have to look again at how to do that. I have never actually gone into the firmware there. I have never needed the advanced featrures as I use it only as a POE switch. But it is worth looking at.
It might be a couple days before I change settings there as I have now started backing up my files at 100mbps. If I had the full speed it would have been done already.

Tomas, I have tried changing cables

I have a second switch that is 1gbps The two switches will connect between each other at gb speeds they aslo work on the other computer and switch. And I have tried several cables. So I don't think it is the cables.

When I try to force GB from the mx box the lights do not light up on either switch at all.

It occurred to me that the nic could report gb availability and not support it. But, It did work before when I was running mint. I'm thinking about installing mint on that machine. Either that or buying a different nic card.

I should mention that I tried to force it with these commands that did not work for me.

ethtool -s eth0 advertise 0x020
ethtool -s eth0 speed 1000 duplex full

[Adrian]

Can you try Mint live and see at what speed it connects?
Those commands won't help because it's the router that doesn't advertise 1000Mbps (as far as I understand)

[timkb4cq]

It is possible that another driver could help. Realtek recommends the r8168 driver instead of the r8169 driver for your chipset. Here are brief instructions on how to build it.
viewtopic.php?p=485965#p485965

[AK-47]

Another possibility is either faulty cabling or faulty ports. Gigabit uses all 4 pairs whereas 100BASE-TX uses only two pairs, so if you can't get it to work within software as a result of updated drivers etc, clean and check the cables, plugs and sockets.

[bobbee]

Now that my back-up is done. I decided to try the possible solutions in the thread.

The switch does have the option to set the port speed, but would not let me do that, giving an error.

The reason why I had difficulty accessing the switch was because it was on a different subnet, Changing that to an accessible subnet did seem to increase my speed slightly so that was a good move.

What did do it, was changing to the r8168 driver.

Settings for eth0:
Supported ports: [ TP ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
Supported pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
Advertised pause frame use: No
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Link partner advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
Link partner advertised pause frame use: No
Link partner advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Speed: 1000Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: Twisted Pair
PHYAD: 0
Transceiver: internal
Auto-negotiation: on
MDI-X: Unknown
Supports Wake-on: pumbg
Wake-on: d
Current message level: 0x00000033 (51)
drv probe ifdown ifup
Link detected: yes


Thank you very much, problem solved.