Solved NIC slows its speed down after short period of time.

[YoMaMMa186]

I have a home server running Windows 7 Ultimate x64 on a PC with an Asus P5N-D motherboard. (nVidia 750i SLI chipset, nForce 10/100/1000 NIC)
We have around 10TB of hard drives connected to it and all are in RAID 1. (two 2TB+2TB arrays with Seagate Green drives and one 1TB+1TB array with Seagate 7200.12 drives)
Randomly, it will decide to slow down from gigabit to 100mbps. (My router shows gigabit as orange and 100mbps as green)
That's very unfortunate for us seeing as we transfer hundreds of gigs of data through it regularly.
If I unplug the cable from my router (Netgear N600 DR3700, DD-WRT v24-sp2 (02/17/11) st) and immediately reconnect it, it goes back to gigabit. (The light also switches from green, 100mbps, to orange, gigabit)

Here is a screenshot of my advanced network settings box.



And here are the settings I have selected:

Network Address: Not Present
Priority and VLAN: Priority Enabled
Speed/duplex settings: Auto Negotiation
VLAN ID: 1
EVERYTHING else is set to Disable

Under Power Management, "Allow .... turn off to save power" is unchecked.
Any help? I'd rather it stay in gigabit mode.
Thanks.

 

[wilywombat]

Hi YoMaMMa186, welcome to seven forums. Have you got the latest nvidia drivers for your board :- NVIDIA DRIVERS 15.57 WHQL If not try an update.

 

[zigzag3143]

I have a home server running Windows 7 Ultimate x64 on a PC with an Asus P5N-D motherboard. (nVidia 750i SLI chipset, nForce 10/100/1000 NIC)
We have around 10TB of hard drives connected to it and all are in RAID 1. (two 2TB+2TB arrays with Seagate Green drives and one 1TB+1TB array with Seagate 7200.12 drives)
Randomly, it will decide to slow down from gigabit to 100mbps. (My router shows gigabit as orange and 100mbps as green)
That's very unfortunate for us seeing as we transfer hundreds of gigs of data through it regularly.
If I unplug the cable from my router (Netgear N600 DR3700, DD-WRT v24-sp2 (02/17/11) st) and immediately reconnect it, it goes back to gigabit. (The light also switches from green, 100mbps, to orange, gigabit)

Here is a screenshot of my advanced network settings box.

View attachment 167011

And here are the settings I have selected:

Network Address: Not Present
Priority and VLAN: Priority Enabled
Speed/duplex settings: Auto Negotiation
VLAN ID: 1
EVERYTHING else is set to Disable

Under Power Management, "Allow .... turn off to save power" is unchecked.
Any help? I'd rather it stay in gigabit mode.
Thanks.

Can we assume the usual? CAT6 enhanced cable, short runs (<10 meters)? How many devices are wired through the router? Are all devices terminated correctly (old school question)?

If push comes to shove you can throw a packet analyzer on it to see how many re-transmits there are.

 

[YoMaMMa186]

Can we assume the usual? CAT6 enhanced cable, short runs (<10 meters)? How many devices are wired through the router? Are all devices terminated correctly (old school question)?

If push comes to shove you can throw a packet analyzer on it to see how many re-transmits there are.

Category 5E cable. The cable from the server to the router is 3 meters. The router has one port for my room (which contains an 8 port gigabit switch), one for my brothers room (which contains an 8 port gigabit switch), one for the server, and one that goes out to a 10/100 24 port switch for the rest of the house. All devices should be terminated correctly, my dad was a journeyman electrician and spent 15 years of his life installing these cables for others.

 

[zigzag3143]

Can we assume the usual? CAT6 enhanced cable, short runs (<10 meters)? How many devices are wired through the router? Are all devices terminated correctly (old school question)?

If push comes to shove you can throw a packet analyzer on it to see how many re-transmits there are.

Category 5E cable. The cable from the server to the router is 3 meters. The router has one port for my room (which contains an 8 port gigabit switch), one for my brothers room (which contains an 8 port gigabit switch), one for the server, and one that goes out to a 10/100 24 port switch for the rest of the house. All devices should be terminated correctly, my dad was a journeyman electrician and spent 15 years of his life installing these cables for others.

Had to ask

only thing I can guess is the cable run is short enough, perhaps cat 5E isnt quite up to gigabit. I might try a cat 6E run (cheap enough to test)

 

[wilywombat]

Should be Cat 6, 6E or 7 for gigabit.

 

[YoMaMMa186]

I switched to the one Cat6 Cable I own to try and will be updating the drivers also as posted. Thanks.
We'll see in a few days if it works.

 

[YoMaMMa186]

Alright thanks guys!
I changed both the cable and updated the drivers and it seems to be working.