50% performance hit on overall throughput.
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True Jason.. to a point. I've been in IT professionally for over 15 years. I can count the number of actual bad patch cables I've run into on less than two hands.
It is pretty unusual but not that unusual if you're in a scenario where you deal with a lot of networking. Via working with our support customers, I see roughly a handful a year, not that many considering the number of boxes. I've been drawing an IT paycheck for roughly 17 years and probably haven't hit triple digits on bad patch cables yet.
This end result, with something you mentioned earlier, is making me wonder - you mentioned forcing it to gigabit, was it only negotiating to 100 Mb full duplex before you did that? That's precisely what a CAT5 cable would do. Probably half the confirmed patch cable issues I've seen in recent years were CAT5e or 6 cables that had an issue of some sort that prevented gigabit negotiations, they acted as a CAT5 (non-e) cable would in that scenario. Worked fine at 100 Mb though. Trashing and replacing the cable fixed.
If you were at 100 Mb, and forced an inadequate cable to gigabit, that'd explain everything. If you're negotiating to 100 Mb with two gigabit devices, your cabling is almost certainly the issue. Don't force in that circumstance (or really most any circumstance, people break more than they fix there).
Also I'd trash rather than replace the ends on any cable that's giving you issues. Yeah most likely the ends are the problem unless some part of the rest of the cable has sustained visible physical damage or excessive twisting, but IMO it's not worth taking the chance (well, maybe at home).
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I've seen in recent years were CAT5e or 6 cables that had an issue of some sort that prevented gigabit negotiations
We had to wire a whole section of a data room over because the installers used zip-ties and jacked up the cables clear to the wire tray entries.
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Yeah no ya'll make perfect sense. cabling is that one thing that is just there.. never really think about it unless I'm having to make a new patch cord. I still have a few dozen feet of Cat6 on the spool.. I'll make new and replace my wan, lan and wap cables with cat6 and see what happens.
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If the connection is forced to 1Gbps FD but the cable is not up to it, for whatever reason, would you not expect to see errors on the interface? Does the bge driver have sysctl stats like Intel does? (I don't have one here to check). Edit: Yes is does on dev.bge
I would expect to see some evidence of a problem other than just a seemingly slow throughput from a bad cable. Interesting reading this thread though, a useful diagnostic exercise. ;)
Steve
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Swapped out cables at lunch.. if I specify auto negotiate the port flaps. If I reset to 1gig/FD I have to restart the modem and Pf before they link up.
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Try a switch between the modem and pfsense.
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i could add a switch.. and I might have to try it. But I don't relish the idea of leaving yet another electricity consuming device in there for something as trivial as that.. when hard setting the speed/duplex works too.
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Oh, I misunderstood. If it's all working to your satisfaction, then yeah don't try adding a switch. I thought you were still unhappy with the performance.
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nah the new cabling alleviated that. I'm rocking out with my **** out now!.
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REVO South Africa dude???
nah the new cabling alleviated that. I'm rocking out with my **** out now!.
