10 mb/s on a gigabit network? Why?

[Network-Chris]

Hi there,

I just registered here because I thought you guys might have the answer to my question.

I use a Linksys WRT54GL wifi router at home.
Since a few weeks I have a NAS (Synology DS412+).
I realized that the router has problems with the big data traffic.
Since other users of this router has similar experience I decided to buy a TP Link Gigabit switch: TLSG1005D to put between the wifi router and my laptop. So I connected my laptop and the NAS to the Gigabit switch but the transfer rate is still 10 mb/s only. Any idea what could be the reason?
The MacBookPro that I am using has a gigabit ethernet card of course.

Thanks in advance to everyone who spends his/her valuable time to answer my question!

 

[kanewolf]

Bad ethernet cable is the first, most obvious, culprit.

 

[stevech]

My retired WRT54G lacked the CPU speed to handle the 15Mbps speed of my cable modem downstream.
your "10 mbps" means Mbits/sec, right?

Data moving within your LAN (PC to/from NAS), we presume this flows through your gigabit ethernet switch.

Does the PC and switch LEDs show that the ethernet link is using gigabit? Color of LEDs indicates.

 

[Turick]

Could the laptops nic be set to 10/full? Or possibly even auto and it's not auto sensing properly? Maybe you can manually set the interfaces on both the nas and the laptop to 1000.

 

[tipstir]

Laptops NIC can be set to anything as long as the wired NIC supports the speeds you want. But you must remember that unmanaged switches are set to auto on the ports. The can sense what speed is required to be push through them to the the network device connected to them by port. So best to use auto. You could try forcing the port on the laptop to 10mbps Full Duplex.

 

[Turick]

Do you mean forcing the port to 1000mbps/full? I've seen tons of problems in the past with hardware not auto negotiating correctly. Lots of emphasis on the past, so I don't know if modern hardware has eliminated those issues, but if he's only seeing 10mbps speeds and has solid cat5e or cat6 cables to a gige switch, my first step would be to force the nics to 1000/full.

 

[stevech]

I've not had auto-negotiate for speeds fail, despite my sizeable assortment of gear over the years. Even the cheap store-brand from Frys gigE switches.

 

[Network-Chris]

Update

Sorry for my late reply. I wasn't at home for a couple of days.

The thing is if I connect the NAS directly to my laptop I get a speed around 30 Megabyte per Second. That is ok for me. But if the router or switch is in between I only get 10 Megabyte/second. I bought LAN cables that have the best rating on amazon. I will try again with other LAN cables and see what will happen. Unfortunately there are no LEDs on my Macbook or switch that indicates the connection speed.

 

[CBRworm]

Sorry for my late reply. I wasn't at home for a couple of days.

The thing is if I connect the NAS directly to my laptop I get a speed around 30 Megabyte per Second. That is ok for me. But if the router or switch is in between I only get 10 Megabyte/second. I bought LAN cables that have the best rating on amazon. I will try again with other LAN cables and see what will happen. Unfortunately there are no LEDs on my Macbook or switch that indicates the connection speed.

When you connect the NAS directly to your laptop, is it through a crossover cable or via USB connection?

 

[ubuntero]

Try to enable "flow control" function in your Gbit TP-link (if there is one there). I`ve got the same issue when tried to connect my Cisco Gbit cable modem to Draytek Web Smart G1240 Gbit switch ..