Inconsistent speed from pre-wired home

[Travis Lamoureaux]

Hi guys!

 

I'm brand new here but I think I've come to the right place!

 

The details - I have "fiber to the home", so no modem or anything like that. All I see on my end is a gray box on the side of the house and a cable labeled "demarc" that runs into my basement. That cable is (for lack of a better word) my "pipeline" from the ISP. When I plug the demarc cable directly into my laptop and run speedtests I get a conistent 10+ (averaging 10.8 mbps) which is consistent with what I'm supposed to receive.

 

My home is prewired with ethernet ports in 4 different spots. I've only been able to test two of the ports (the others are blocked by incredibly heavy furniture) but the results are the same: My speeds are all over the place and very, very rarely get over 5-5.3mbps.

 

I'll get one speedtest, after I plug in my cable, that comes in the 10-11 range but almost all of the following tests will run at 1-5.

 

I've used 2 different routers - The first was an Asus RT-N56U and I just recently, hoping it would fix the issue, switched to a TP-Link TL-R860. The problem has not improved or changed at all.

 

I don't have any equipment to test the wiring but that's the only thing I can think of that might cause the problem - seeing as at the "pipeline" I'm getting proper speeds but I'm also 100% not a networking/computer guy.

 

Thanks!

[nanobot]

Could be faulty wiring. How old is the house? If it's Cat 4 or 3 wired to support Ethernet that would explain a lot of things.

Distance is also a factor. The cabling, from end to end, of wired devices is not to exceed 100m by standards of Ethernet. (330 feet or so.) That includes any patch cable from the wall outlet to your device, and any cabling from inside the wall outlet to the source of the ISP demarc.

If the four ethernet ports are on a shared bus (I.e., wired all together) that will also have negative performance implications as well.

Thanks,

EBrown

[CA3LE]

Well isn't that frustrating...

 

Welcome to TestMy.net.  By the way, you have a beautiful family.  Looks like a pictures you get with a new picture frame.  

 

 

So, to your knowledge the wiring that's coming off the side of the house is direct to those outlets?  Can you take a picture of the Dmark for us?

 

I feel that if it was just wiring it would be rare for it to affect all the outlets.  Think of this, if your Dmark is the actual point where the connection splits off, how would all of the cables be affected equally?

 

One great explanation would be if all of those cables left the Dmark, traveled up into your attic and then off to the respective locations... I've found on many occasions where critters use the cables to sharpen their teeth.  They'll strip the cables bare and leave the copper behind.  Often these cables will still function at degraded rates.

 

If I was confident that the speed was right at the side of the house... and that it indeed split off right there.  I'd pop up in the attic and go right to the area where all of the cables are still together. (this is where they still have something in common that would explain why ALL of them are bad)  ... it may be that you have an animal in your attic chewing your cables OR it could be that the cables have been pulled around a beam to the point that they can only pass degraded signal.

 

You don't have to be a communications expert to trace back the cable. Feel it along the way and look for any imperfections.  Take pictures of anything that doesn't look perfect, post them here and we'll let you know what we think.  Pay special attention to areas where the cable comes in and out of drilled holes and anywhere it comes in contact with anything.  Also take note if the cable is near any electrical wiring... if it is and if it's possible move the cables away from any electrical wiring.  They radiate energy.  Sometimes installers will lazily drop communications lines down the same hole for the electrical outlet.  They don't want to pull out their drill and end up making the next guy do twice as much work.  Those shouldn't be next to each other and if they are those outlets may need to be redone.  So, if it's not a complete pain in the back and you can trace one of the lines back to the wall it drops down into take note if it's a lonely cable or has 'friends'.  Again, look for kinking and damage as this is a major point of contact.  (but odds are, if all outlets are affected the problem is back further.  Where they all share something in common.)

 

Let us know what you find. 

[Travis Lamoureaux]

Let's see - My house was built in June of 2013, so it's almost brand new. I think these issues have existed for a while but I was never doing anything intensive enough to notice any of the issues. I'd notice the occasional inconsistent speed but never keyed into it until I tried downloading larger files the last few weeks.

 

I checked the cables that run to the panels and they all say Cat 5e.

 

The dmark cable appears to come straight from the box and into my basement. Maybe a grand total of 8 feet of cable, with the remaining cabling running a max of 100 feet. So all in, the longest line is maybe 150 feet. Or it should be.

 

To clarify, the demark cable runs into the basement and has a connector. I then hook it into a router and that router hooks into the 4 prewired cables that run into the living area of the house.

 

I've attached some photos - I'm hoping that makes things look a little more clear. I didn't include a photo of the "box" outside, I can't get into it. Escuse the rat's nest of cables, I'm hoping ugly doesn't affect anything.

[CA3LE]

Ugly doesn't affect anything.  To me, that looks beautiful.  Looks like you have wiring I'd generally trust... but looks can be deceiving, especially in pictures.  There is a lot that those pictures can't tell.

 

You know you're good at the 8ft feed from the dmark, right?  Plug that into your router and then test directly off the router with a ~6ft cat5 patch.  Use your Asus RT-N56U.  Test a few times to make sure it's consistent.  Let us know the results.

 

Looking deeper I'd open the wall plates and inspect the outlets... and inspect the plugs going into the router.  The person who made them may not have done a very good job.  Take macro shots if you can and post them here.