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I'm living in a recently built apartment in Germany. There are many ethernet wall socket in each room. When connected my Macbook to the router directly with a cat 5e cable I can get around 800 mbps but I want to use the ethernet wall socket instead but it gives me only 100 mbps. Note that I have a gigabit contract. I'm using same 5e cat cable. My only theory is that the ethernet cable installed in the walls connected to the socket walls is causing the issue. But when I have opened it it seems like they are using cable cat 7. I have attached a screen shots of the socket. Do you have an idea what can be the issue ? or how can I investigate further ?

Update 1: I have tested all ethernet sockets of the apartment and I found that 3 of them are having issues but I was able to get the 800 mbps with the other wall sockets. Do you know what can be the issues with the 3 sockets that have a limited speed to 100mbps ?

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Update 2: Here is an example of a socket that is working fine:

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and the other end:

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iOSGeek
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1 Answers1

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It seems that on some of the outlets not every wire is correctly connected.
Either a bad contact or 2 wires got swapped around. That can be in the outlet itself, or on the other end of the cables, which will be somewhere in the building close to were the router is located.

100 mb/s only uses 2 pairs of wires. 1000 mb/s needs all 4 pairs. If the installer of the cabling used a 100 mb/s only tester to check the lines when installing the outlets he/she may have missed bad connections on the pairs that are only used with 1000 mb/s connections.
I have seen that happen before... In new buildings, especially housing (instead of offices) a regular house-hold electrician usually also installs the data-cabling, often with only limited knowledge of the specifics of data-cabling.
It is quit possible the electrician didn't even know that his cable-tester wasn't suited for gigabit.

What you can try:

  • If this is a rental get the landlord involved. Don't mess with it yourself.
  • If you own the place: Check if you still have warranty from the builders and have them fix it. It isn't "fit for purpose".
  • Compare the bad outlets with a good one to make sure the cable-colors match. If the wires are in the wrong order you have to pull them out and re-seat them back into the clamps in the right order. You can use a small flat-bladed screwdriver to push the ends of the wires down into the clamps.
  • If they wires are in the right order you can also use the screwdriver to push the cable ends deeper in the clamps to make sure they make good contact.

There are specialized punch-tools to lock the wires into the clamps, but a flat screwdriver works in an emergency. Just use a small one. You don't want a too big blade to spread the clamps so far apart that loose their grip on the wire.

Tonny
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