AX11000, Cat 8 cable, and Ethernet switches?
AX11000, Cat 8 cable, and Ethernet switches?
So earlier I faced slow Wi-Fi speeds and decided to try a direct Ethernet link between my AX11000 router and my home office desktop. Because the cable had to run along the walls, I chose white Cat 8 cable, ending up with a 30m length. I connected it today and managed to get full-speed performance on my desktop. The issue started when I added a 4-port Gigabit switch at the desktop end of the cable, expecting a higher speed connection. Instead of reaching 1000Mbps, all devices only reached 100Mbps. It seems the switch didn’t recognize the Cat8 as gigabit-capable. Could it be that the port wasn’t set up correctly? Or is the problem more about where the cable was plugged in rather than the cable itself? I’m wondering if swapping the port on the router would help or if there’s another way to improve the connection.
The only way for a switch to skip gigabit support when it works elsewhere is due to one or more of these factors: 1) the wiring is faulty, all four pairs needed for gigabit or higher are missing; 2) the 2.5GbE port can't reduce speed to gigabit—unexpected since it should handle 100Mb too; 3) certain pins are damaged, mirroring issues with the Ethernet cable.
You bring up some solid observations. Running the cable on the side of the Cat 8 did cause issues, but it’s unclear if the same connection would work directly between the router and the 2.5G port on the motherboard. I also experimented by plugging the Cat 8 into a standard gigabit port on the router, which still gave me 100Mbps speeds.
That's the interesting aspect that it functions at 2.5GbE, especially since the 2.5GbE port on the motherboard is what matters. Unless there are unusual signal problems on the switch, Ethernet typically stops at 100 meters (though this can vary with cable type and speed). Cat8 is built for data centers and supports 25GbE and 40GbE over copper at 30 meters or less, so that might be relevant but I’m not sure.
It might be useful to consider that performance varies with speed. At lower speeds you experience significant delays, often exceeding 120ms, whereas at higher speeds the latency drops to about 18ms.
to be clear, i also used my personal laptop for testing the Cat8 cable connection, which showed 100Mbps speeds; therefore the issue likely lies with the cable itself or the router.
I've noticed several budget Netgear and TP-Link switches starting to malfunction. Have you considered switching the connectors between the switch and your devices? Also, since the switch is linked to a Cat8 uplink, try using different cables to see if performance improves.