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

[Mike A.]

It is nice to have at times. Beyond the network management, an old Netgear switch that I use for my cams gives me the POE status and power consumption, let's me restart POE ports, estimates where faults are in cabling, etc. Those kinds of things have saved me some time and trouble over the years.

 

[Jared1236]

It is nice to have at times. Beyond the network management, an old Netgear switch that I use for my cams gives me the POE status and power consumption, let's me restart POE ports, estimates where faults are in cabling, etc. Those kinds of things have saved me some time and trouble over the years.

RIght on. That's the kind of stuff I'm looking to access on a web interface. The trendnet "surveillance grade" switches have some pretty nice features baked in but the price is kind of high. Might be worth it for peace of mind though

 

[samplenhold]

Never had a problem with Netgear switches. Have GS305P, GS308P, GS308PP which all feed into a JGS516PE-100NAS which is a managed switch. My BI PC is also plugged into that switch.

 

[tech_junkie]

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?

It looks like one that would work:

8-Port Gigabit Ethernet PoE Switch with Metal Casing, Desktop or Wall Mount

Find the 8-port smart PoE switch with 8 Ethernet ports, up to 15.4/30 W power output. Connect your cameras and recorders with the efficient and stable transmission.

www.annke.com

However, I would have to get one and see if it truly converts to 1GB or switches in the 100MB packets on a 1 Gb net which would slow it down.
usually a switch that has 1Gb POE ports is more designed for IP phones than cameras and most of those switches doesn't integrate 100Mb packets to 1 Gb.
But I did notice it has an "extend" switch which should be in the "off" position.

 

[Jared1236]

It looks like one that would work:

8-Port Gigabit Ethernet PoE Switch with Metal Casing, Desktop or Wall Mount

Find the 8-port smart PoE switch with 8 Ethernet ports, up to 15.4/30 W power output. Connect your cameras and recorders with the efficient and stable transmission.

www.annke.com

However, I would have to get one and see if it truly converts to 1GB or switches in the 100MB packets on a 1 Gb net which would slow it down.
usually a switch that has 1Gb POE ports is more designed for IP phones than cameras and most of those switches doesn't integrate 100Mb packets to 1 Gb.
But I did notice it has an "extend" switch which should be in the "off" position.

My understanding is that only the uplink ports are gigabit and the PoE's are 100megabit. To your second point all extend switches are in the off position.

 

[anotherone]

Well this was interesting. Thanks to this thread, I went and looked at my NIC performance and it was about 79mbs, but when I enabled the 4 indoor cameras it went to 99mbs and never went above 99. So I got a laptop and set the usb ethernet adapter to the private network, plugged it in and did a copy of a large file, and sure enough, never wwnt above 99mbs.

Swapped cable and the copy did 850mbs - all is now good.

 

[IAmATeaf]

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.

The Dell switch was a proper layer 2 gigabit switch, the one with the issue was a 3Com gigabit switch.

 

[IAmATeaf]

My understanding is that only the uplink ports are gigabit and the PoE's are 100megabit. To your second point all extend switches are in the off position.

Bit disingenuous as the product title states

“8-Port Gigabit Ethernet PoE Switch with Metal Casing, Desktop or Wall Mount”

 

[CCTVCam]

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.

My bad he was doing 10 Gigabit. I'd still make sure your cables are high spec and up to quality though as a poor quality cable will potentially slow your network. CCA being one such possible example of a poorer quality cable.

 

[tech_junkie]

My bad he was doing 10 Gigabit. I'd still make sure your cables are high spec and up to quality though as a poor quality cable will potentially slow your network. CCA being one such possible example of a poorer quality cable.

installers like to use 6A because it has a plastic core that prevents twisting and getting out of bend radius when installing the cable. Which can be a challenge with cheap 5e

 

[msquared]

FYI, iperf is another great tool to check bandwidth between two NICs to diagnose issues.

 

[Jared1236]

Not saying I love CCA but it does work and I've accomplished gigabit speeds at max distance in high temperature environments and they've held up okay too. With that being said the cable used here is of quality for sure. Cat5e 350mhz CMR

 

[IAmATeaf]

Isn’t your problem those Annke switches? They have 100mbs ports with a gig uplink so will limit the max throughout/capabilities of the switch.

Also if you cam traffic is buzzing around you router then that won’t help either as most routers provided by broadband providers are just the cheapest of the cheap.

 

[Jared1236]

So as it turns out it was certainly the fault of the Annke switches and well Annke themselves. I asked them to send me a spec sheet of the hardware and sure enough, all of the ports are 10/100 even the uplinks. They were called out on it, they're taking responsibility and a resolution is pending. Until that happens though I've managed to increase the traffic past 100mb by plugging the switches into an actual gigabit switch with the BI machine plugged into the router.

 

[Jared1236]

Update: Annke support has been pretty great. Aside from waiting a day for responses since they are based in China, we came to the best possible resolution I think. The total cost of four 8-ports was 200 dollars, they're refunding the full amount and giving a 25% off code for the 16-ports which brings the total cost of those to 380. Getting that 200 back means effectively 180 spent all in all for four 16-port switches that definitely do gigabit.

 

[tech_junkie]

Update: Annke support has been pretty great. Aside from waiting a day for responses since they are based in China, we came to the best possible resolution I think. The total cost of four 8-ports was 200 dollars, they're refunding the full amount and giving a 25% off code for the 16-ports which brings the total cost of those to 380. Getting that 200 back means effectively 180 spent all in all for four 16-port switches that definitely do gigabit.

Glad you got it sorted. Its yet another reason why everyone should look and even ask about a no-name China switches when you buy them. I don't bother with Amazon because half the time the item is not described very well.
I get my cheap POE switches directly from BV-Tech in Elk Grove, IL. PoE Switches - BV Security

 

[Jared1236]

Glad you got it sorted. Its yet another reason why everyone should look and even ask about a no-name China switches when you buy them. I don't bother with Amazon because half the time the item is not described very well.
I get my cheap POE switches directly from BV-Tech in Elk Grove, IL. PoE Switches - BV Security

Damn, what a great link, thank you.

 

[IAmATeaf]

Update: Annke support has been pretty great. Aside from waiting a day for responses since they are based in China, we came to the best possible resolution I think. The total cost of four 8-ports was 200 dollars, they're refunding the full amount and giving a 25% off code for the 16-ports which brings the total cost of those to 380. Getting that 200 back means effectively 180 spent all in all for four 16-port switches that definitely do gigabit.

Have they confirmed that the backplane speed/ switching capacity of the 16 port is greater than the 8 port switch?

 

[Jared1236]

Have they confirmed that the backplane speed/ switching capacity of the 16 port is greater than the 8 port switch?

Yup I had them send the spec sheets and I also have 16-ports deployed in other spots performing as they should.