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I'm not a network/hardware guy so please bear with me if I'm using the wrong vernacular in my question:

My office recently upgraded our Internet from 50/10 Mbps to 150/20 Mbps. For this upgrade, we got a new router to support the increased speed. This router is plugged into a switch which has several outlets that are connected to various computers throughout the office. The switch has a lighted panel that shows which outlet is handling a throughput of 1000M (green light) or 100M (yellow light). Some of the outlets are green and others are yellow.

Hence my question -- shouldn't the computers that are connected to the switch with a green light (1000M) be seeing a faster connection speed when conducting a speed test? Because if so, I'm not seeing it. For example, if I plug my computer directly into the router, I'm getting a speed test result of 170/23 but if I plug the same computer into the switch (and get a green light), and the switch is plugged into the router, I get a speed test result of 23/23. Why?

Any advice, suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated.

For those who want to know... our switch is a 3COM baseline switch model 2824-SFP Plus.

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  • From what I can see, that's a gigabit switch. Any change it's gongested? Or that others are clogging the line?
    – Jarmund
    Apr 15, 2015 at 20:52
  • How many outlets are on the switch and how many are active? I believe the switch will be receiving the throughput of the single port it's plugged into, and will be splitting that throughput over any active connections to the switch. In short, each active connection to the switch shares the throughput for the router port the switch is plugged into and splits it based on priority/activity.
    – Daved
    Apr 15, 2015 at 20:53
  • In general, just because the ports can go that fast doesn't mean the switch can process data that fast. Here's some specs for that switch for anyone looking... Apr 15, 2015 at 21:04
  • check the linkspeed and duplex for both ends of the uplink line between the router and the switch. if the ports have failed or negotiated down to 100Mbps, you might see these kinds of issues. if both ports support explicit speed settings, then use them. if either doesn't, make sure they are both set to auto. how many clients is this switch supporting approximately? if its only a few, the switch is more than sufficient. Also, make sure all the devices are using the new gateway IP, and consider disabling VLANs. that could cause unnecessary routing. Apr 16, 2015 at 3:04

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The specs for the switch say it is only capable of 23 MBps forwarding rate, which means when it is doing layer 3 routing, rather than just ethernet layer 2 switching. It must be configured to do routing and that is why it is slow. Reconfigure it to not use layer 3 routing and just forward the layer 2 switching.

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  • you make a good point, but I would note that per Techie007's link, that model should forward at 35.5MB/s (284Mbps), and it looks like OPs figures are in Mb throughout the post, not MB, so the throughput from the Internet is 23Mbps, which is definitely subpar for a 150+Mbps connection. Either way, it seems appropo for the op to disable any VLAN related features, which might bring routing into play. Apr 16, 2015 at 2:55
  • The forwarding spec for the 2824 is 35.5 Mp/s (that's a p, not a b) which I take to mean packets - but the fact remains that the switch is an antique (I have 3 of those in my basement, so I'm kinda personally aware of their limitations.) Even the 29xx series is a considerable improvement over the 28xx series. I'd replace it.
    – Ecnerwal
    May 5, 2015 at 12:20

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