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[broadstairs]

If you have a gigabit router/switch and 3 pcs connected to it two of which are gigabit capable and one not, what speed does the lan run at? 100mbps obviously where the slower pc is concerned,  but do the faster pcs run at 1000mbps between each other? Or does the whole lan run at the speed of the slowest device connected?

Stuart

[roseway]

It depends on the switch, but a decent one should be able to maintain (up to) gigabit speeds through the ports connected to gigabit-capable equipment, while having slower speeds through the ports connected to 100 Mbps equipment.

[broadstairs]

Thanks Eric, that's what I hoped. I am interested as now have gigabit capable hardware.

Stuart

[roseway]

Yes, me too. I haven't actually bothered to time the streaming speeds, but the ports on my switch light up with different colours, depending on the speed of the connected equipment.

[broadstairs]

Yes, me too. I haven't actually bothered to time the streaming speeds, but the ports on my switch light up with different colours, depending on the speed of the connected equipment.

I hadn't thought to check that as my switch is hidden behind stuff....... I'll have to check out whether or not mine behaves like that.

Stuart

[sevenlayermuddle]

The answer is the one hope for, I suspect...

My LAN comprises two segments, one is 100Mbps, the other is gigabit.   It comprises a Netgear gigabit switch with various equipment connected to it, one of which is the Netgear router, which operates at just 100 Mbps.   There is stuff connected to both segments, gigabit and 10/100.  So far as the gigabit switch is concerned, it will see the router as just another device, connected at 100Mbps. 

When transferring large volumes of data, between systems connected directly to gigabit, I certainly see actual speeds of 150-300 Mbps, therefore it does get the benefit of gigabit (albeit limited by disk access speed and other bottlenecks).

At risk of alienating the Linux community, I actually find Windows' task manager the best of the bunch for showing network performance, the graphs and percentages are easy to interpret and, if you decide to check with a stopwatch, turn out to be quite accurate too.