Why are my gigabit NIC's only doing 100mb?

[tech_junkie]

I've never seen that even when I had a Reolink.

maybe there was a bad batch that I got some of them when I bought it on amazon.
because I bought 1/2 the cameras one time and then a few weeks later bought the other 1/2
granted this was my first low end system I bought. But I know its not an install problem since all I did was pop and swap my free Hikvision cameras from work that were mounted. Which none of those had issues. Plus the fact that I install ip cameras for a living. So its a professional install.

 

[tech_junkie]

Sure but I'm targetting less than 200 megabit and have accomplished this before. This is all new equipment with gigabit infrastructure.

Is the speed from the router to the switch is linked at 1Gb in "port status" of the router?

 

[Jared1236]

I think that the OP is stating that he is expecting 160-180 based on identical setup in a different place, but he is only seeing 99.

If everything is exactly the same, then it obviously is not EXACTLY the same. Something is different.

You get it for sure. There's 11 Annke c800's between the main and sub, each camera should be pushing out roughly 16 megabit each and I'm pretty sure they're all trying to push out that much but packets are being dropped due to some sort of bottleneck at either router or windows (not 100% sure though that's why Im here to gather opinions)

The differences between the configs are trivial. Other location is on Win11, has 2x 16 port, 1x 8 port, and has 10 more cameras, the c500's. This location has 3x 8 port and the mentioned c800's.

The issue this brings is incredibly inconsistent frame rates across all cameras shown in BI. On the mainstream they'll dip as low as 7 and spike to over 20 when they should be at 15 at least . The substreams stay at a reasonable consistency maybe a variance of half a frame or so. I say these packets are being dropped because let's say I disconnect even 4x cameras the throughput is still at 99 and the variance in frames is improved but still there.

 

[IAmATeaf]

If packets are being dropped as you suspect then would not see this in your recorded streams?

 

[wittaj]

Probably not the issue but when I have seen my FPS in BI fluctuate it is a result of a failing power supply. I am sure you have confirmed it but make sure you are not close to the power budget of the POE switch.

 

[samplenhold]

due to some sort of bottleneck at either router

You are implying that the cams are going through the router. If so, that is probably the reason for packet loss.

Fluctuating FPS, fine. But is it impacting the video quality?

Ten more cams in the other system, and the other differences, are not trivial. Originally you said they were the same.

Are you getting video quality issues or not?

 

[Jared1236]

You are implying that the cams are going through the router. If so, that is probably the reason for packet loss.

Fluctuating FPS, fine. But is it impacting the video quality?

Ten more cams in the other system, and the other differences, are not trivial. Originally you said they were the same.

Are you getting video quality issues or not?

Well yeah, they go through the router I have 3 spaced-out switches and if that was the reason for packet loss why don't I have packet loss on the other?

Inconsistent framerates and bitrates are low quality video. Seeing a person walking and then seeing them skip 3 feet further is a quality issue.

Win10/11 are more the same than different, the camera count is trivial if I'm targeting 20megabits less throughput, and the switches are trivial because even if these 8 port switches were at 100base the highest amount of bandwidth going through a single switch (64megabits) is achievable.

The router and PC hardware are identical. I'm pretty sure it's not the switches or camera counts fault that for whatever reason my throughput won't go over 99megabits plugged into the router 3 feet away.

 

[wittaj]

So both locations see the exact same non camera traffic going thru the router? Same number of wifi devices ,etc?

 

[Jared1236]

So both locations see the exact same non camera traffic going thru the router? Same number of wifi devices ,etc?

There is no non-camera traffic at either location. The camera networks go through an offline router, the TP-Link.

 

[looney2ns]

You need to provide a detailed drawing of the network layout in both locations.
Most likely it is because of camera data going through a router.
Bad or incorrectly installed cabling.
Problems with a switch.
Using CCA cable, not Solid Copper Core cable.

 

[Flintstone61]

could be a cable termination somewhere between PC and the cameras
could it be anything with the Motherboard chipset NIC and the 2nd NIC?
Try running the cams across the other NIC
see if the onboard NIC is the problem...
or if it defaults to 10/100 for some reason with 2 NICs plugged in.

 

[CCTVCam]

Consider also your cabling. Gigabit switches need Gigabit cabling. Linus Tech Tips installed gigabit in his office. I seem to remember the cabling being very expensive.

 

[Jared1236]

could be a cable termination somewhere between PC and the cameras
could it be anything with the Motherboard chipset NIC and the 2nd NIC?
Try running the cams across the other NIC
see if the onboard NIC is the problem...
or if it defaults to 10/100 for some reason with 2 NICs plugged in.

I have tried both. In the router interface and windows adapter properties, it does auto negotiate to 1 gigabit. Forcing negotiation doesn't stop operations but it's still capped at 99 megabit. What do you think about getting another dummy gigabit switch over there and plugging all devices into that?
I also had the thought earlier, what if it's something in BI? I mean negotiation is strong but mayeb the application is limiting itself somehow?

 

[Jared1236]

Consider also your cabling. Gigabit switches need Gigabit cabling. Linus Tech Tips installed gigabit in his office. I seem to remember the cabling being very expensive.

All it takes is cat5e or better to do gigabit and since there are only 3 feet of distance between the router and desktop so that does suffice.

 

[Jared1236]

Update: At this point, my gut is telling me it is likely a fault of the router. I'm ordering a Ubiquiti ER-X in the coming days to see if it makes a difference and possibly different switches to follow if that doesn't cut it. They aren't of great quality if I'm being honest but since they worked out for me in the other deployment I thought they'd still be alright but I should've known better... so if that is needed I'll be going with a model from either TrendNet or FS for quality sake. I'll provide updates as things change.

 

[tech_junkie]

Update: At this point, my gut is telling me it is likely a fault of the router. I'm ordering a Ubiquiti ER-X in the coming days to see if it makes a difference and possibly different switches to follow if that doesn't cut it. They aren't of great quality if I'm being honest but since they worked out for me in the other deployment I thought they'd still be alright but I should've known better... so if that is needed I'll be going with a model from either TrendNet or FS for quality sake. I'll provide updates as things change.

You never listed what switch you are using.
Never had observed anything majorly wrong with a tp-link er-605 router except one that was slow to log in and flashing its firmware solved it.
But I have seen switches bog down a network. Most cause of that is using the "vlan" or "extend" mode on the switch.

It still makes me wonder if you are getting the main streams to connect.

 

[IAmATeaf]

If this were me I’d go back to basics, so dumb down what you have and test and then expand a bit at a time to identify the actual cause.

I had a problem a few years ago, added 2 cables into my sons room, used proper cat5e solid copper outdoor rated cable and he noticed he was getting crap performance.

Through trail and error I eventually worked out that although the devices connected initially connected at 1gig during heavy load it would drop down to 100mbs and then sync back to 1g and repeat.

So whenever I looked at the connection stats it was connected at 1gig. Did the normal reterminate etc but I eventually worked out that it was the switch, it couldn’t drive the length of cable which was around 20m and so kept on falling back, tried differing ports but same thing.

Replaced the switch with a proper Dell corp switch and bingo problem solved but to work all this out I disconnected everything to get to the bottom of the issue.

 

[tech_junkie]

Replaced the switch with a proper Dell corp switch and bingo problem solved but to work all this out I disconnected everything to get to the bottom of the issue.

problem is there are differen't switches made for different applications. The Dell switch you use probably had auto-colesing meaning it takes 100Mb packet and switch the data into a 1Gb packet.
There are special switches that do this format conversion natively, They are sold as 10/100 POE to 1Gb uplink.

 

[Jared1236]

You never listed what switch you are using.
Never had observed anything majorly wrong with a tp-link er-605 router except one that was slow to log in and flashing its firmware solved it.
But I have seen switches bog down a network. Most cause of that is using the "vlan" or "extend" mode on the switch.

It still makes me wonder if you are getting the main streams to connect.

So I am using generic switches with the Annke branding on them. For prices of them I figured they were worth a shot with their return policy after I saw them function well at deployment #1 I figured I'd put them in #2 as well. Could you rephrase you last question please?

 

[Jared1236]

After this kind of experience, I'd like to just have managed everything given the scale of these systems and that there will be more deployments at remote locations states away. I'd like to have as much information as I can get about the status of the network.