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[rjm]

With my new desktop system I will be setting up my first gigabit ethernet network.

I am assuming the following:
- all devices connected to the router must have gigabit capability
- I can use standard ethernet cables
- the router and connected computers with automatically detect and switch to gigabit
- there are no Windows settings that I need to configure

Are any of these assumptions wrong? Is there anything else important I should know?

Thanks for your help.

[MrC]

You can connect slower hardware, but speeds between the link partners will slow to (usually) the fastest negotiated speed.

Cat 5 or better.

Gigabit requires auto-negotiation, so all your gigabit devices should work fine.  Only very old or buggy drivers/hardware may have issues.

Generally, no settings you need to worry about (except w/old or buggy drivers/hardware).

[glynor]

Cat 5 or better.

IMO if you're going to run wire through the house, run Cat 6.  There isn't that much of a cost difference, and it will lead to fewer transmission errors (especially with longer cable runs).  Plus, if 10gbe stuff ever comes down out of the stratosphere, it'd let you easily run 10GBASE-T over copper.  If you already have it run, Cat 5e will work absolutely fine, though.

[MrC]

Agreed, and monoprice is a fine source.

[rjm]

Thanks!

Sorry 2 more...

1) How can I confirm I am operating in gigabit mode and that a poor quality cable is not slowing it down?

2) Should I expect large file copying over the network to be much faster, or just somewhat faster?

[glynor]

1) How can I confirm I am operating in gigabit mode?

Look at the adapter status in Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network Connections.  If you have a Gigabit switch (and no faulty wiring), though, it will be.

2) Should I expect large file copying over the network to be much faster, or just somewhat faster?

Compared to 100BASE-T?

Heck yes.  I have nice switches and a mix of Cat 6 and Cat5e.  I get around 118MB/s to and from my network media drive.

[glynor]

ProTip:  Buy a small battery backup unit for your switches, router, and cable modem (or whatever).  Normal home switches and routers and whatnot don't take very much power at all, so usually a quite small one will do.

I have to use a slightly bigger one because my router is an older Athlon 64 X2 3800+ box, but it is nice... When the power goes out, my cable almost always stays up and the Internets keeps working over WiFi for my stuff for a good, long time.

[rjm]

Battery back up is a great tip except I've had a bad experience with a home UPS. I bought what I thought was a very good one and found the lead acid battery only lasted 18-24 months before the battery would not hold a charge and had to be replaced. I did that twice and then decided to stop using UPS's because it is way too non-green for my tastes.

[jmone]

Dont use any of the "junk" switches (eg those $40 Dlink 5 port ones), pay a little more for something decent (I like my unmanaged HP Procurve)

[rjm]

I bought an Asus RT-N66U Dual-band Wireless-N900 gigabit router for this project.

I already have an Asus RT-N56U and love it.

[imugli]

Dont use any of the "junk" switches (eg those $40 Dlink 5 port ones), pay a little more for something decent (I like my unmanaged HP Procurve)

This. If you're going to the trouble of wiring your house, don't skimp on the gear running it. I have a 24 port Procurve as well. Hasn't skipped a beat in nearly 3 years and is great to manage / set up...

[InflatableMouse]

I'd advise anyone on gigabit to set their adapters fixed to 1000/full.

The reason is that auto negotiate link speed is not a defined standard among network manufacturers and what auto negotiates correctly with one card may not work with another.

You may not even realise it as a mismatch may still result in a working network, its just that suddenly a lot of packets get dropped or resent. Your pc wakes from sleep, it negotiates and theres an issue: copy is slow. What do you do? I don't know anyone except some geeky IT engineers who would like at the NIC statistics and notice packet loss. Others will start rebooting stuff or unplugging a router or switch and then it works again because the link gets negotiated correctly.

By far the most issues in my job with network speeds and reliability had to do with incorrectly auto negotiated link speeds. All our deployment scripts for new servers since include fixed speedsettings for all nics. The network boys do the same on their end, every switchport is fixed to 1000/full.

[rjm]

I'd advise anyone on gigabit to set their adapters fixed to 1000/full.

Good idea. Looking at the Speed/Duplex settings in Device Manager for my network controller I see two choices for fixed speed gigabit:

100 Mb half duplex
100 Mb full duplex

I assume I want full duplex. Correct?

What's the most popular low cost tool (including Windows itself) for monitoring network health?

[glynor]

What's the most popular low cost tool (including Windows itself) for monitoring network health?

Wireshark.

And, yes, Full Duplex, of course.

[glynor]

If you don't want to splurge for the HP Procurve switches (if you don't need anywhere near 24-ports, for example), I've had great luck with the Netgear ProSafe switches.  It looks like the models I have are now discontinued, but they have been rock-solid and they support everything I need (LACP trunking, VLANs, QOS, etc).

[MrC]

The reason is that auto negotiate link speed is not a defined standard among network manufacturers and what auto negotiates correctly with one card may not work with another.

I'm going to call FUD on this one.  This is pretty rare with today's hardware.  If you feel strongly about this case, it would be better to back up the claims with actual numbers and models.

[MrC]

...I've had great luck with the Netgear ProSafe switches.  It looks like the models I have are now discontinued, but they have been rock-solid and they support everything I need (LACP trunking, VLANs, QOS, etc).

I love my NETGEAR ProSafe VPN Firewall FVS336GV2.

[glynor]

I'm going to call FUD on this one.  This is pretty rare with today's hardware.  If you feel strongly about this case, it would be better to back up the claims with actual numbers and models.

I'd have to agree.  Mine are all auto-negotiated and I've never seen similar issues.

I try to make sure to have high quality NICs though (Intel FTW), but even with the random onboard Realtek crap I haven't had many issues (aside from a bad driver version here or there).

But... My network is small and relatively homogenous, so perhaps in a bigger setup you might see problems I'm not seeing at home.

[Sparks67]

IMO if you're going to run wire through the house, run Cat 6.  There isn't that much of a cost difference, and it will lead to fewer transmission errors (especially with longer cable runs).  Plus, if 10gbe stuff ever comes down out of the stratosphere, it'd let you easily run 10GBASE-T over copper.

If you can find it, then go for CAT6A  http://www.belkin.com/cables/cat6a/, and go for a business switch.   I had netgear prosafe in the past, but I have a new Cisco Smart Switch SG-200.  It smokes the Netgear in terms of speed.  Dell has some great switches, but they are rather expensive. 

[InflatableMouse]

I'd have to agree.  Mine are all auto-negotiated and I've never seen similar issues.

I try to make sure to have high quality NICs though (Intel FTW), but even with the random onboard Realtek crap I haven't had many issues (aside from a bad driver version here or there).

But... My network is small and relatively homogenous, so perhaps in a bigger setup you might see problems I'm not seeing at home.

Oke, let me rephrase. They used to use different methods but whether or not they claim standardised methods on paper doesn't mean it always works correctly. I know this for a fact because I see this fail often enough not to trust it.

[InflatableMouse]

Good idea. Looking at the Speed/Duplex settings in Device Manager for my network controller I see two choices for fixed speed gigabit:

100 Mb half duplex
100 Mb full duplex

I assume I want full duplex. Correct?

What's the most popular low cost tool (including Windows itself) for monitoring network health?

Obviously if you wanted to fix it to gigabit you'd choose 1000/full .

Unfortunately I've seen some cards that won't allow fixed gigabit settings and only allow auto sensing.

[InflatableMouse]

Wireshark.

Maybe Wireshark does things I'm not aware of but I thought Wireshark was just a software packet analyzer; at least that's what I've used it for at work once or twice. Now unless you know what to look at in packet headers (I don't) and can make sense of terms like ACK and SIN and what not, Wireshark may not be the tool for the uneducated.

Typically, in home networks people don't really monitor network health. I don't think there is something similar like S.M.A.R.T. for harddisks. Personally I think home network is set-and-forget, unless things aren't working but that is unlikely often not stuff you'd fix with Wireshark.

[glynor]

Maybe Wireshark does things I'm not aware of but I thought Wireshark was just a software packet analyzer; at least that's what I've used it for at work once or twice. Now unless you know what to look at in packet headers (I don't) and can make sense of terms like ACK and SIN and what not, Wireshark may not be the tool for the uneducated.

Typically, in home networks people don't really monitor network health. I don't think there is something similar like S.M.A.R.T. for harddisks. Personally I think home network is set-and-forget, unless things aren't working but that is unlikely often not stuff you'd fix with Wireshark.

Agreed, completely.

But it is really the only network analysis tool worth anything.  But, yes, it has a VERY steep learning curve and is probably unnecessary for most home networks.

[mercedesman]

Oke, let me rephrase. They used to use different methods but whether or not they claim standardised methods on paper doesn't mean it always works correctly. I know this for a fact because I see this fail often enough not to trust it.

Actually you were right the first time, I still see this happen today though admittedly not quite as often as it used to. When the standard was first written and implemented, too much latitude was written into the standard resulting in auto-negotiated mismatches. Lately I have seen this happen between Sun and Cisco equipment but have also seen this between HP and Northern Telecom equipment using crappy lan cable near the 100 meter length (max for the standard). Once again though, these are commercial installations and it does not happen often. For the average home users, it will be pretty rare. One caveat though, if I saw a network slowdown it is one of the first things I want to look at. That is also why I like managed switches because on a managed switch you can get to the switchport and see what has been negotiated and also see the lan statistics. Mismatched connections results in runts, giants, CRCC errors, etc. You will also see counts in these areas if you have a 10/half connection because after all, it was designed to operate that way, though your error counts will be quite low in comparison to a duplex mismatch where you have one side at half duplex and the other at full. Packets get through, but the connection is slow and there are many more errors.

Wireshark is not a network management tool it is a packet sniffer/analyzer and only displays packets that arrive at your NIC unless you are connected to a hub where all packets are distributed to all ports. In the modern world though we don't use hubs anymore because its an inefficient use of bandwidth and is less secure.

Lastly, if I were wiring a house or a new project I would use Cat 5E cable. We have found Cat-6 by any manufacturer has given variable results during gigaspeed testing. Cat-5E has been the most consistent.

[rjm]

fyi

The Intel driver for my new ASUS motherboard has some nice diagnostics available via device manager. It's telling me I need a better cable which does not surprise me because it is very old.

[Sparks67]

Lastly, if I were wiring a house or a new project I would use Cat 5E cable. We have found Cat-6 by any manufacturer has given variable results during gigaspeed testing. Cat-5E has been the most consistent.

CAT 5E cable is rather old technology?  I think the first install, that I saw with CAT-5E was in late 90's at work.   Most new home installers are now using CAT-6A or CAT 7.   http://www.lanshack.com/cat6a.aspx
CAT-6A fits easy in the switch.   

[glynor]

Wireshark is not a network management tool it is a packet sniffer/analyzer and only displays packets that arrive at your NIC unless you are connected to a hub where all packets are distributed to all ports. In the modern world though we don't use hubs anymore because its an inefficient use of bandwidth and is less secure.

Fair enough, as I was really simplifying.  Wireshark is, or at least was, a packet sniffer/analyzer, not really a total network management tool (though it really has evolved over the past few years).  Of course, for your average home user (even an enthusiast) there would be no benefit to using a "real" network management solution, certainly not when you consider the cost.

There are network management tools that are designed to work with (along side) Wireshark.

[rjm]

Just ordered a bunch of various CAT6 lengths.

[muzicman0]

on the hard coding the network interface (IE: setting your NIC to 1000/Full), I would not recommend this, unless you can set both sides of the link (IE: the switch side)...if you have one side hard coded, and the other side set to auto/auto, you will end up with a half duplex link.  At least with Cisco gear, that is the case.

Of course, if you are on gigabit ethernet, I believe you have no choice but to use auto/auto...

[muzicman0]

small correction to the above...if, in fact it is gigabit ethernet on both sides of the link, I think no matter what you will get full duplex...the issue I brought up above is only applicable to Fast Ethernet (100Mb)