The first time i saw this switch , all sort of red flags shot up in my head. Do you see the issue here? I will give you a hint; the devices are all new (1 Gb ethernet), the switch has 1 Gb ethernet ports.
Ok here goes my rant....
You pay for gigabit. You bought the gigabit switch. The box literally says Gigabit Ethernet in bold, confident letters. And yet… your port is humming along at a very 2005-looking 100 Mbps. What gives? Before you start blaming your computer, your switch, or Mercury being in retrograde, take a breath — there are a handful of very common reasons your link decided to downshift.
The usual suspect? Cabling. Gigabit Ethernet needs all four twisted pairs inside that cable to work properly. Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps) only needs two. So if one pair is damaged, poorly crimped, bent, or simply missing (looking at you, mystery wall jack), the link will politely negotiate down to 100 Mbps and call it a day. A quick cable swap with a known-good Cat5e or Cat6 cable solves this more often than anyone likes to admit.
Next up: speed and duplex settings. If one side of the connection is forced to 100 Mbps and the other is set to auto-negotiate, the devices will usually settle at the lower speed. This can happen when someone manually configured a switch port years ago and forgot about it — the networking equivalent of finding an old sticky note labeled “temporary.” Always check both the NIC settings and the switch configuration to make sure everything is set to auto unless you have a very specific reason not to.
And finally, sometimes the answer is less dramatic: the device itself just isn’t gigabit-capable. Plenty of printers, IP cameras, IoT gadgets, and older hardware only support 10/100 speeds. No amount of cable swapping will change that. When a port locks at 100 Mbps, it’s usually not broken — it’s just telling you something in the chain can’t handle more. The trick is figuring out whether it’s the cable, the config, or the device quietly living in the past.
Not plugging any specific products, but this is where the basic 'cable test;' on some switches can help, or make sure you have a good quality cable tester.
Lots of Networking articles for you to check out..
