BBB_2005
09-06-2006, 05:56 AM
Hi!
I just recently found out some new (at least for me) information concerning the connection to the Internet. Maybe this information is common knowledge for those who work with computers but I am not a pro and I think that maybe this information can be useful to some of the readers of this forum.
Anyway, here it is:
Before summer my Internet provider upgraded their network and bandwidth suppose to be 10x times higher that it was before. However, when I came from vacation I noticed that internet is rather slow. So, I downloaded program which measured speed and discovered that bandwidth is 10x slower than it was before the upgrade!!!
Well, following the instruction from my ISP web page I tried to connect PC directly to the network connector (I have router and 2 PC connected via it to Internet). I was very surprised that this way PC did not discover connection at all, it just said "LAN cable is unplugged"... It was the same (except for message) on both my PCs (one running XP and another Linux).
The last thing I did - I connected laptop computer (which is 2 years newer than my desktop PCs) and it worked! I had no idea what is going on, so I called ISP support.
Long story short: support person was also very puzzled and he suggested to change network cable, saying that their recommend at least 5E category for this cable. I was very sceptic about this (yea, right, blame the cable...).
I have to mention that I checked what those categories are (I had no idea), and here it is: http://support.gateway.com/s/tutorials/Tu_846602.shtml
I became even more sceptical, since cable that I currently had (category 5) should be just fine according the characteristics I found.
Anyway, since I did not have any better idea and cable that I am using is rather long (10 m), I decided to try another one. I got cable of category 6 and guess what... it worked! Speed increase was about 25x behind the router and now desktop PCs connected directly to the outlet (without router) worked just fine!
Well, that's all. I realized that the story became very long, I don't like to read such a long posts myself but I could not explain this shorter. I hope this info will be useful for some of you.
Regards
BBB
I just recently found out some new (at least for me) information concerning the connection to the Internet. Maybe this information is common knowledge for those who work with computers but I am not a pro and I think that maybe this information can be useful to some of the readers of this forum.
Anyway, here it is:
Before summer my Internet provider upgraded their network and bandwidth suppose to be 10x times higher that it was before. However, when I came from vacation I noticed that internet is rather slow. So, I downloaded program which measured speed and discovered that bandwidth is 10x slower than it was before the upgrade!!!
Well, following the instruction from my ISP web page I tried to connect PC directly to the network connector (I have router and 2 PC connected via it to Internet). I was very surprised that this way PC did not discover connection at all, it just said "LAN cable is unplugged"... It was the same (except for message) on both my PCs (one running XP and another Linux).
The last thing I did - I connected laptop computer (which is 2 years newer than my desktop PCs) and it worked! I had no idea what is going on, so I called ISP support.
Long story short: support person was also very puzzled and he suggested to change network cable, saying that their recommend at least 5E category for this cable. I was very sceptic about this (yea, right, blame the cable...).
I have to mention that I checked what those categories are (I had no idea), and here it is: http://support.gateway.com/s/tutorials/Tu_846602.shtml
I became even more sceptical, since cable that I currently had (category 5) should be just fine according the characteristics I found.
Anyway, since I did not have any better idea and cable that I am using is rather long (10 m), I decided to try another one. I got cable of category 6 and guess what... it worked! Speed increase was about 25x behind the router and now desktop PCs connected directly to the outlet (without router) worked just fine!
Well, that's all. I realized that the story became very long, I don't like to read such a long posts myself but I could not explain this shorter. I hope this info will be useful for some of you.
Regards
BBB