Connection speed on one Actiontec router port limited to 10Mbps
sherwooa
Enthusiast - Level 3

OK, I'm having a strange problem with my home network. 

I currently have the FiOS Actiontec MI424WR Ver C router connected to a pair of Linksys Wired 10/100 routers via the Ethernet ports (DHCP is disabled on the Linksys routers and enabled on the Actiontec).  All of my other devices (several PC's and laptops, some wired and some wireless, a printer, a Blu-Ray network player, a Roku player, etc.) are connected through the Linksys routers at 100 Mbps.  However, when I try to connect another wired device, either directly to one of the Actiontec LAN ports or to one of the Linksys router LAN ports, I am limited to 10 Mbps.  This is not limited to a single device - I have tried 2 different laptops and both will only connect at 10 Mbps. 

I have tried switching LAN ports on the Actiontec and forcing the ports to 100 Mbps full duplex in the Port Configuration, but when I do that, it basically shuts down the connection.  When I set it back to Auto, I can connect at 10 Mbps only.  I have tried disconnecting one of the other wired connections to see if there was some sort of bandwidth limiter going on, but that didn't seem to affect this connection at all.

Any idea on what is going on?  Is my Actiontec router failing?

Thanks in advance.

Re: Connection speed on one Actiontec router port limited to 10Mbps
smokeybandit
Enthusiast - Level 3

Dumb question...have the laptops you tried been able to successfully connect at 100mb via a wired connection elsewhere?  Are their NIC cards configured for 100?

Re: Connection speed on one Actiontec router port limited to 10Mbps
Hubrisnxs
Legend

go into the nic settings on the pc's and force it to go 100 full duplex (keep in mind some PC's absolutely hate full duplex for some reason, so you might have to do 100mb half duplex)

Get to your NIC settings and click the configure button

then go to advanced and choose 100base t   or 100base tx

or 100 half mode or 100 full mode,   the nic manufacturers name it different things, so you may have to play with the settings there. 

Re: Connection speed on one Actiontec router port limited to 10Mbps
sherwooa
Enthusiast - Level 3
Thanks for the suggestions. The strange thing is, I can connect at 100 Mbps w/both laptops elsewhere, and even on another segment of the network, so it's not the laptops. This actually all started when I tried to connect a 2nd bluray and it couldn't connect at all, so I started testing laptops instead.

Any other thoughts?

Could 2 ports really be going bad?
Re: Connection speed on one Actiontec router port limited to 10Mbps
Hubrisnxs
Legend

its possible for a pc to autonegotiate properly one place, but not autonegotiate in another. 

If you plugged it into port 1 and 2, and those were 10 mb auto sense, and then plugged into port 3 and 4 and those were 100, then that would more likely be the router.   otherwise its most likely the pc not auto sensing properly for whatever reason. 

Re: Connection speed on one Actiontec router port limited to 10Mbps
sherwooa
Enthusiast - Level 3
True, but it seems awfully strange that it would happen with 2 different laptops and another network device as well. Something else has to be going on here.
Re: Connection speed on one Actiontec router port limited to 10Mbps
smokeybandit
Enthusiast - Level 3

@sherwooa wrote:
Thanks for the suggestions. The strange thing is, I can connect at 100 Mbps w/both laptops elsewhere, and even on another segment of the network, so it's not the laptops.

But did you test them on a wired part of the network?

Re: Connection speed on one Actiontec router port limited to 10Mbps
sherwooa
Enthusiast - Level 3
Yes.
Re: Connection speed on one Actiontec router port limited to 10Mbps
Hubrisnxs
Legend

something else "may" be going on, but a 2 min test would tell us that.  

From my experience, auto-negotiation typically works well, but it most certainly does hiccup - and when it does, it doesn't mean that it's the laptop or the router or the software, it usually means its a combination of all three or at least two different things that cause it.

Re: Connection speed on one Actiontec router port limited to 10Mbps
sherwooa
Enthusiast - Level 3

Thanks.  I'm not trying to be difficult, but it seems the issue is not with the laptops.  I tried forcing the setting to 100 Mbps full and half duplex on both, and it doesn't connect to these ports.  Only at 10 Mbps, and even at that, it sometimes has trouble getting an IP address.  When I connect the laptops to other segments of the network (i.e. off of a router upstairs wired to one of the other Actiontec ports, I get 100 Mpbs).

When I try connecting a wired bluray device to one of the original ports in the Actiontec it can't even get an IP address at all.  I am stumped.