I have recently purchased a Gigabit switch for my home network as I have a Gigabit Icybox and apparently a Broadcom NetXteme Gigabit ethernet network card in my PC.

Anyway, its all connected up but network indicator on the PC only says speed is 100MB!

I thought these things would automatically switch up to the higher speed or am I doing something wrong?

Your onboard card will be 100mb

What CAT are your ethernet cables?

CAT5 cables won’t handle gigabit. You’ll need CAT5e or CAT6.

Surfer – are you missing the bit where he says he has a gigabit card in his machine?

Check the drivers for the card are installed correctly and not using generic windblows drivers?

A couple of likely things:

– does the cable have all 8 wires connected? You can do 10 or 100Mb half-duplex with 4, but full-duplex (which gigabit needs) takes all 8.
– link speed hard-set in the configuration somewhere. Let it autodetect.
– switch port hard-set (but less likely on home/small-office stuff).
– drivers not right or knackered somehow. Download latest, uninstall the device in device manager, reboot and give it the new drivers.

Thanks all – replaced cable and now 1Gbps.

Er yes! Sorry

Hasn’t had any effect on STW though, its still slow!

(I am being sarcastic before anybody suggests that a Gigabit home network has any effect on my Broadband!!)