Gigabit Switch Slows Down Internet Speed?

[rmiller1959]

I don't think this is likely, but I can't ignore the data, so here goes.

I bought an ASUS RT-N56U wireless router, and saw an immediate Internet speed increase. Whereas my previous top speeds were at @50 Mbps, and only occasionally, I was getting @60 Mbps very consistently.

I was using an SMC SMCGS16 gigabit switch, and decided to upgrade to a D-Link DGS-1024D. Aside from the eight additional gigabit LAN ports, it gave me brand consistency for all my switches (I have one small gigabit switch on each floor, and each of them is a D-Link), and since unmanaged switches are essentially pass-throughs, I shouldn't see any performance degradation. Besides, the D-Link is "green" so it might save me a few pennies a month on the electric bill.

Anyway, I swapped out switches and everything works, but my speed is down by about 10 Mbps. The consistency is still there, and I attribute that to the router, but it's now around 50 Mbps. I shouldn't complain because that's still plenty fast, but I wondered what it could be about the D-Link switch that would cause me to lose 10 Mbps in Internet speed. Thoughts?

 

[thiggins]

It's highly unlikely that the switch is slowing you down unless it is broken.

 

[rmiller1959]

It works, so it's not broken, but...

...I still can't explain the speed difference. I might try putting the other switch back into the loop and seeing if anything changes.

 

[rmiller1959]

Tried the old switch...

...and got the same numbers as with the new one. The earlier, higher readings must have been the anomaly. My knowledge and experience told me the switch was irrelevant to the equation, but I was struggling with the results I was receiving. Thanks for your assistance!

 

[rmiller1959]

An interesting twist to the story...

I ran a program called Namebench to identify the fastest DNS servers for my connection. I went into my router and manually entered the recommended DNS servers (OpenDNS-3 and OpenDNS-2), rebooted, and ran three consecutive Internet speed tests. In each case, I'm back up to the 60 Mbps-plus readings I was getting before.

Could a change to the Comcast DNS servers (I assume it's Comcast servers that load when using the automatic detection option) explain the speed drop I experienced?

 

[rmiller1959]

For the record, my average speed reading before switching to the D-Link switch was 59.162 Mbps. The average reading after the switch was 51.00736842 Mbps. Finally, the average reading after changing to different DNS servers is 61.44 Mbps. I don't know if that data tells you anything.