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Found a work-around for slow ethernet

SmilesLots

SmilesLots

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 30, 2010
176
0
SW Virginia
I had a USB to ethernet adapter, plugged it in, restarted my Mac Pro, let it configure itself, and I now have my 2+ mb internet connection. Before I was lucky to get 2kb.

For whatever the reason, the built-in ethernet connects at 10baseT, oit gigabit. From all I have looked at, this seems to be a problem with the 10.6.6 or 10.6.7 update and some machines. For me it has only been on my Mac Pro, not the iMac, and not either of the 2010 Mini's.


4-17-2011 9AM
For whatever the reason, at least two drives are now working. I used CCC to copy from HD4 to HD 5, vs the other way around. Took a long time. But I now have built-in ethernet working. Weird observation - in preferences, network, ethernet it says I'm on 100baseT and it's grayed out.
 
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Are you connecting to a switch or directly to your modem? I have a mac pro 09 and one of the ports would not connect to my switch unless I forced it at 10Mb but that port would work at 1GB on one of my other switches. As far as I could see there was nothing wrong with the switch because my other computers had no problem connecting to it at 1GB speeds. Anyways I ended up buying an internal network card so I could use two of the ports to connect at gigabit speeds.
 
weird, but issues with auto configuration aren't unheard of. Did you try forcing gigabit, full duplex on the built in NICs?
 
elvisizer said:
weird, but issues with auto configuration aren't unheard of. Did you try forcing gigabit, full duplex on the built in NICs?
Click to expand...

They are all grayed out. I may try a clean configure. Bur this is not an area for which I have much expertise. The computer is a tool, not a career. Ha.
 
for329 said:
Are you connecting to a switch or directly to your modem? I have a mac pro 09 and one of the ports would not connect to my switch unless I forced it at 10Mb but that port would work at 1GB on one of my other switches. As far as I could see there was nothing wrong with the switch because my other computers had no problem connecting to it at 1GB speeds. Anyways I ended up buying an internal network card so I could use two of the ports to connect at gigabit speeds.
Click to expand...

I connect through ethernet to an airport extreme which is connected to a cable modem (Cox). I also have two time machines wirelessly connected, and the computers connected to them have no problems speed-wise. Only the ethernet on the Mac Pro - both ports. I think it is one of the pieces of software from the Mac Update Spring Promo bundle. I've had to get some work done, so I'll get a chance to work on it later this week.
 
What cable are you using and what environment does the cable lay in? Is it routed through places with high power appliances or such?
 
Pressure said:
What cable are you using and what environment does the cable lay in? Is it routed through places with high power appliances or such?
Click to expand...

AFAIK it's a standard cat5 cable, 10 ft in length. No high power appliances. The cable works fine with the USB to Ethernet adapter I am using. I get in excess of 2 mb/sec connect speed. But whenever I connect this cable to either of the rear panel ethernet jacks, the computer tells me there is no cable connected.

If it's a cable problem, why does it work with the USB adapter, but not on the rear panel ports. And this setup has been working for three years. It only stopped after the 10.6.7 update - around that time. I have also re-installd the combo update, downloaded again and re-installed. I'll see if I can find another cable, but I think they are all in use. Thanks.
 
Bootcamp would be an interesting way to test whether its a hardware issue or software. If you boot to Windows or another OS and the problem goes away you've definitely narrowed it down to an OS X issue.

Also, there are a wide variety of network cards available for a low cost. If all else fails you could add one to your system and worry about it later. This approach wouldn't have the performance penalty of the usb adapter.
 
DustinT said:
Bootcamp would be an interesting way to test whether its a hardware issue or software. If you boot to Windows or another OS and the problem goes away you've definitely narrowed it down to an OS X issue.

Also, there are a wide variety of network cards available for a low cost. If all else fails you could add one to your system and worry about it later. This approach wouldn't have the performance penalty of the usb adapter.
Click to expand...



I use Parallels. All pci slots are in use. It is now working ok, although I do not know for sure what I did to fix it. Maybe orienting the cable differently. The USB to ethernet adapter has always worked perfectly. I did remove several p[ieces of software that seemed to be hogging a lot of resources and disk space. But now I do have one hard drive that will not startup. I get the circle with the line through it. Thanks for the ideas.
 
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