Slow Speed's Over Cat 5 UTP?

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TimmyJackson

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#225510 22-Nov-2017 12:28

Hi Everyone,

We recently got UFB installed and its going great over our 2.4/5Ghz WiFi Network!

However over our wired network we seam to be losing some serious speed.. I would really appreciate a networking guru/or anyone that could give me some pointers.

Background Information.

ISP: Spark 100mbps Down 20mbps up.

On the Enable Fibre Network.

Modem: HG659 Standard Firmware

Running a WiFi Network 2.4/5Ghz

DHCP Server Running

Around 20 Clients

Cabling: UTP Cat 5, 24 AWG, Lengths upto 20M

Cable is nearly 20 years old, its in the walls and use to run phone lines though out the house, until we wired up the Ethernet.

Demarc point is in the garage with an old school patch panel for connections.

I have then made up my own patch cables that one end is "punched" into the patch panel and the other has an RJ45 plugged into the HG659 (Router)
I can add a photo if this isn't clear, just ask.

Local Performance:

I use Linux and my Gnome Local Network Manager says I'm getting 100Mbps to the router.

I have also tested with iperf with my raspberry pi as the server with a patch cabled straight into the back of the router and can confirm the TCP packets were going at 100mbps.

SpeedTest.net Results:

Average Download on Cat 5 Ethernet: 50~60 Mbps

Average Upload on Cat 5 Ethernet 20 mbps

Cat6 Cable Test:

For testings sake I then ran a long Cat 6 from the same computer up the stairs to the router, it synced up at 1Gbps

SpeedTest.net on that cable gave me the full 110 Mbps!

We can also get this on WiFi if we are close to the router.

So with all that in mind I think its safe to say the Cat 5 in the walls is causing the problem..

But why, Could I have wired it up wrong? Or do you think the lengths are too long ~20M?

Possibly it could be my wiring from the patch panel to the RJ45s in the back of the router. but this all speculation.

Would greatly appreciate any advice on how to trouble shoot this further to narrow down the problem.

Thanks

ps. This is my first post, So please let me know if this format is unclear or if you would like further information. Cheers

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3916 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1905737 22-Nov-2017 12:33

Probably the first post I have ever seen like this :). Cat5 is rated for 100mbps and unless its really poor quality you should be fine. It is possible if it has been bent too much in the wall it has attenuation (is it solid core)? More likely though is the quality of the termination/punchdown. Can you provide photos of this?

Speedtest 2019-10-14

gbwelly

1243 posts

Uber Geek

#1905738 22-Nov-2017 12:46

Maybe it's auto negotiating half duplex?

TimmyJackson

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1905745 22-Nov-2017 12:57

Zeon:

Probably the first post I have ever seen like this :). Cat5 is rated for 100mbps and unless its really poor quality you should be fine. It is possible if it has been bent too much in the wall it has attenuation (is it solid core)? More likely though is the quality of the termination/punchdown. Can you provide photos of this?

Hi Zeon,

Thanks for the reply, yeah the Cable to my eye doesn't look of too poor quality, There's no solid core, Here's a photo of the cable:

Photo 1 Cat 5 UTP

Photo 2 Patch Panel

The Grey Cables are the patch cables going out to the router.

Photo 3 Close Up of Patch Panel

Photo 4 Punch Tool I'm using - just for fun ;p

As for the punch down, is that the correct way to complete this kind of Job? I stripped the cable first before punching it, is that correct?

Let me know what you think.

Cheers,
Timmy

TimmyJackson

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1905749 22-Nov-2017 13:02

gbwelly:

Maybe it's auto negotiating half duplex?

Hi Gbwelly,

I guess that's a Possibly, Do you know of a way to test/ troubleshoot?

Cheers

Disregard I have found out the connection is running Full Duplex.

Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
Supported pause frame use: No
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
Advertised pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Link partner advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Link partner advertised pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only
Link partner advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Speed: 100Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: MII
PHYAD: 0
Transceiver: internal
Auto-negotiation: on
Supports Wake-on: pumbg
Wake-on: g
Current message level: 0x00000033 (51)
drv probe ifdown ifup
Link detected: yes

bignose

142 posts

Master Geek

#1905788 22-Nov-2017 14:05

plug something in to the router direct using a known good (preferably cat6) patch cable and run tests - will tell you if it's an issue with the huawei (could have an iffy switch chip) or your house's cabling

cabling can die - I had speeds to one of my NAS's drop massively a few months back, after much fiddling about turned out to be the patch cable to it had died subtly, was still reporting link as full duplex / gigabit but actual speed was awful due to a massive amount of retransmitted packets

Talkiet

4793 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1905795 22-Nov-2017 14:19

bignose:

plug something in to the router direct using a known good (preferably cat6) patch cable and run tests - will tell you if it's an issue with the huawei (could have an iffy switch chip) or your house's cabling

cabling can die - I had speeds to one of my NAS's drop massively a few months back, after much fiddling about turned out to be the patch cable to it had died subtly, was still reporting link as full duplex / gigabit but actual speed was awful due to a massive amount of retransmitted packets

I've PMed the OP with a possible partial solution but I thought I'd also comment that I too have seen issues with dodgy cabling causing a lot of frame loss and subsequent retransmission of packets. This can definitely affect performance at higher access speeds/higher latencies.

cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

RunningMan

8961 posts

Uber Geek

#1905799 22-Nov-2017 14:22

TimmyJackson:[snip] There's no solid core,

Do you mean the cable is stranded, not solid core? The bulk of punch down connectors are meant for solid core only - stranded should be for flexible patch leads only.

TimmyJackson:[snip]As for the punch down, is that the correct way to complete this kind of Job? I stripped the cable first before punching it, is that correct?

No. Leave the insulation on, unravel as little of the twist of each pair as possible, then the punch down tool should cut it flush.

Quic Broadband

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cbrpilot

955 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

Spark NZ

#1905809 22-Nov-2017 15:02

Long story short, you need to be running gigabit on the LAN port to get the full speed of a 100M service as the speed as actually higher than 100M at layer 2.

My views are my own, and may not necessarily represent those of my employer.

CYaBro

4589 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#1905826 22-Nov-2017 16:01

That patch panel is most likely only rated for voice so that could the problem.

We have old CAT5 (Not CAT5e) cable in this building at work, which would be around 20 years old as well, and it works perfectly fine at 1Gb.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

TimmyJackson

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1905856 22-Nov-2017 16:22

bignose:

plug something in to the router direct using a known good (preferably cat6) patch cable and run tests - will tell you if it's an issue with the huawei (could have an iffy switch chip) or your house's cabling

Hi Big Nose, as in my Original Post I tested with a Cat 6 Cable and got 1 Gbps speeds Locally which then lead to 100Mbps Download Speeds. Thanks for the suggestion though!

Talkiet:

I've PMed the OP with a possible partial solution but I thought I'd also comment that I too have seen issues with dodgy cabling causing a lot of frame loss and subsequent retransmission of packets. This can definitely affect performance at higher access speeds/higher latencies.

Cheers Talkiet, I Will check my inbox after this post!

Side note; I have checked out the routers logs and cant see any frameloss / lost packets, I might need to go deeper as the interface on the HG659 is well.. just a little light.

RunningMan:

Do you mean the cable is stranded, not solid core? The bulk of punch down connectors are meant for solid core only - stranded should be for flexible patch leads only.

Ah Sorry Yes the cable throughout the house is Solid Core UTP However the patch cables I have punched into the patch panel, that then connect to the back of router via RJ45 are stranded cables.

Could this be part of the issue?

cbrpilot:

Long story short, you need to be running gigabit on the LAN port to get the full speed of a 100M service as the speed as actually higher than 100M at layer 2.

Right so rewire the house, WiFi or Bust.. Haha Hopefully Not!

I have done some more testing and I can confirm that I'm getting near 100Mbps over the local network, it just drops off substantially when we go out to the Internet;

Here's some test results:

Where 192.168.1.9 is the Raspberry Pi plugged straight into the router.

iperf is a lightweight linux program for testing network speed.

iperf -c 192.168.1.9
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.1.9, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 85.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 192.168.1.10 port 49928 connected with 192.168.1.9 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.0 sec 112 MBytes 94.1 Mbits/sec

iperf -t 20 -c 192.168.1.9
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.1.9, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 85.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 192.168.1.10 port 49944 connected with 192.168.1.9 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-20.0 sec 224 MBytes 94.1 Mbits/sec

Then I thought I would try copy a biggish file over scp;

scp manjaro-gnome-17.0.5-stable-x86_64.iso osmc@192.168.1.9:/home/osmc/Downloads
osmc@192.168.1.9's password:
manjaro-gnome-17.0.5-stable-x86_64.iso 99% 1686MB 10.5MB/s 00:00 ETAs

10.5MB/s = 84 Mbits/sec

So I'm pretty confident that the speed on the Local Network can pull close to 100Mbits/sec through the cabling in the wall.

But why on earth are we get so much degradation when I go out to the Internet?

Thanks for all the assistance so far,
Looking Forward to getting it sorted!

Cheers

Talkiet

4793 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1905858 22-Nov-2017 16:25

Short answer - TCP works a hell of a lot better recovering from any packet loss on low latency. As latency goes up the impact of frame/packet loss on TCP throughput gets (much) worse.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

TimmyJackson

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1905876 22-Nov-2017 16:59

CYaBro:

That patch panel is most likely only rated for voice so that could the problem.

We have old CAT5 (Not CAT5e) cable in this building at work, which would be around 20 years old as well, and it works perfectly fine at 1Gb.

Right yeah we could probably just about get rid of the Patch Panel as we have ditched the old copper line with the new UFB Install.

Any tips on how to get Gigspeeds over standard CAT5? Dose your work have any special equipment to achieve this? Or is it just shorter cable lengths and possibly higher quality cable then what I have?

Talkiet:

Short answer - TCP works a hell of a lot better recovering from any packet loss on low latency. As latency goes up the impact of frame/packet loss on TCP throughput gets (much) worse.

Cheers - N

Gotcha yes the Latency dose increase to around 34 ms when testing to the local spark server in Christchurch, that to me also seams abnormally high?

Talkiet

4793 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1905877 22-Nov-2017 17:01

TimmyJackson:

Gotcha yes the Latency dose increase to around 34 ms when testing to the local spark server in Christchurch, that to me also seams abnormally high?

Yes, that's too high... Try pinging 219.88.188.134 please... If you're in Chch it should be 2-4ms...

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

bignose

142 posts

Master Geek

#1905879 22-Nov-2017 17:05

Right yeah we could probably just about get rid of the Patch Panel as we have ditched the old copper line with the new UFB Install.

Any tips on how to get Gigspeeds over standard CAT5? Dose your work have any special equipment to achieve this? Or is it just shorter cable lengths and possibly higher quality cable then what I have?

cat5 should be able to handle gigabit over short-ish runs unless it's trully awful, given your link speed is only 100mbits there's a good chance you've got issues either at the patch board or at the wall sockets and don't have all 4 pairs wired correctly (100 only needs the outer pairs) - grab yourself a cheap ethernet cable tester and check for crossed-over pairs etc (you'll need it anyway if you go ahead and replace that awful/ugly patch board with a proper modern distribution panel)

Talkiet

4793 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1905887 22-Nov-2017 17:15

Oh, although they have improved the web app recently, please use the windows 10 Ookla speedtest app. It's more reliable.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

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