I just threw away a network cable

[DanceswithUnix]

Sorry, but I just need to rant somewhere...

I just realised a Raspberry Pi 4 of mine was only doing 100Mb/s networking from seeing a slow file transfer to my PC. According to ethtool, the gigabit switch it was plugged into would only negotiate up to 100Mb/sec.
I swapped the cable expecting a fault there and all is now well, but it looks like the damned cable only ever had two pairs wired up.

Really, a not fully connected network cable, by design. The missing copper teeth in the RJ45 caught my eye as I removed it. I have no idea what bit of kit that got shipped with or whether it was bought from some Amazon seller or whatever, but the cost of these things is mainly in the assembly and testing so the money saved on a short cable by only using 4 core cat 5e must be tiny. I've seen plenty of junk in my time, but this is new junk to me.

[[GSV]Trig]

We have some pretty funky Cat5 cables here at work, they'd look normal at first glance but they're not really network cables, they're used for connecting ClearCom stuff to Reidel kit, if they're not labelled you can swap cables out and not realise and end up in a world of hurt...

[AGTDenton]

I'm having a similar problem, can't get over 200mbps it's taken a day to transfer 2.2 TB
I'm suspecting the freebie router is the cause as using new cables but once the current transfer is complete I'll check the heads and also try bypassing the router.

[Saracen999]

.... can't get over 200mbps it's taken a day to transfer 2.2 TB
.

Considered upgrading .... to a carrier pidgeon?

Mind you, I can't sneer at the moment. I upgraded my entire home network to 2.5GbE, 10GBe backhaul between mesh nodes and have Virgin 200 broadband. And a modem that apears to be dying. There was apparently a "fault" externally to me yesterday resulting in 0Kb/s (yup, zero) for m ost of the dat, but they fxed that and now I have "the internet" again .... as long as I don;t want to do anything on it. I'm getting maybe 5 to 6Mbps down .... until it conks out entirely. It's so slow it won't even display my Amazon basket without timing out before it completes all the images (maybe 20).

New modem due Friday, but meantime .... oh, for a carrier pidgeon.

It did bring it home to me, a bit like a slap in the face with a dead salmon, just how reliant even I am (and I'm pretty resistant to most aspects) of the internet. For instance, utter disaster .... I'm having to use actual switches to turn lights on and off not voice commands, look at a clock when I want to know the time and use an actual radio to listen to the .... erm .... radio. Wot a PITA.

[[GSV]Trig]

Haha, we've been spoilt eh, people of a certain age complain about how the internet has ruined things and how much better off we used to be, and then suddenly it hits us...

[AGTDenton]

When the transfer finished I looked at the cables and they visually seem ok to me.
I then decided to eliminate the router and connect them directly. At least a crossover cable is no longer required.

Sadly 200mbps is still the limit.
I've ordered some bird food, a nest and a DVD of Pigeon street

This must be a motherboard or OS issue.
The old computer is from 2009 and drivers for 8 & 10 don't exist, Windows 7 drivers are installed on Windows 10 1607 as newer versions of 10 refuse to install so I gave up trying to upgrade. I'm hoping the old one is the cause which will be disbanded once I've got all the data off.

As I'm away for 5 days, I'm just going to setup Allway Sync to do it's thing, that way it will annoy me less if I'm not here.

[badass]

This may sound........odd but try disabling full duplex in the nic settings. With dodgy drivers I've seen that boost performance from aittle over 100 mbit to near gigabit.

[AGTDenton]

This may sound........odd but try disabling full duplex in the nic settings. With dodgy drivers I've seen that boost performance from aittle over 100 mbit to near gigabit.

I have Auto Negotiation or Half Duplex?
It was originally Auto Negotiation but I'd changed it based on trial and error to Full Duplex. That could possibly explain the reason it dived to only 20mbps. However, I'd tried a load of other things that I've reversed back.

Bizarrely I managed to double the speed by plugging in 2 cables to both machines as they both have dual NIC on board. Which is better than nothing, already that's halving the time. Somehow they've automatically done some sort of teaming...

[[GSV]Trig]

Daft question, have you actually checked the connectors in the NIC itself, I've seen them go green after time and a touch of moisture..

[AGTDenton]

Daft question, have you actually checked the connectors in the NIC itself, I've seen them go green after time and a touch of moisture..

Good shout being 13 years old, will have a look tomorrow before I head off.
I had to reboot it earlier as it went a bit crazy on me. So I think it's just on a downward spiral into oblivion

[DanceswithUnix]

Sadly 200mbps is still the limit.

I presume that is 200 megabits per second?
Is that with the two cables?

Aggregating data over two cables is a tricky technology. If the sender is going "round robin" so alternating packets between the two interfaces (generally an easy and reliable method) then the second link could be infinitely fast, it would still only send one fast packet per packet on the slow link giving you exactly double the speed.

[AGTDenton]

I presume that is 200 megabits per second?
Is that with the two cables?

With 2 cables I'm getting 400mbps

1 cable is directly connected between each PC then the other 2 are going via the router

[matts-uk]

I have no idea what bit of kit that got shipped with or whether it was bought from some Amazon seller or whatever, but the cost of these things is mainly in the assembly and testing so the money saved on a short cable by only using 4 core cat 5e must be tiny. I've seen plenty of junk in my time, but this is new junk to me.

Typically stuffed in the box with an ISP supplied router or AV Line adapter kit.

Lost count at the number of times I've had to pull these out of small businesses networks. My technician got a talking to about picking up the first patch cable he found too. Wasn't the mistake that annoyed me, it was not noticing the job was taking 5 times longer than it should and keeping the customer waiting. We now have a policy of immediately snipping any we find.

[matts-uk]

That could possibly explain the reason it dived to only 20mbps.

Can you not move the disk to a spare SATA port on the new PC and transfer directly?

[AGTDenton]

Can you not move the disk to a spare SATA port on the new PC and transfer directly?

That would be ideal but they're in a RAID configuration.

I'm moving to a drive pool based setup on the new system so regardless of any hardware failure in the future I won't be held to ransom.

Hopefully this is a one time deal, the old computer is now very close to being decommissioned & fleebayed.

[[GSV]Trig]

What drivepool software are you going to use?

If you are Windows based then I can recommend Stablebits stuff, they do Drivepool and Scanner, 2 very good bits of software, Drivepool will drop any drive of any size or connection type into a pool, best thing is its NTFS, so if the machine or a drive dies the rest data is still easily accessible.