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I am downloading a huge file and was wondering on how to boost my Ethernet speed. I found this option called "Speed & Duplex" And there were a few options. Two of them were

1) 1.0 Gbps Full Duplex

2) Auto Negotiation (Which was on default)

I switched to 1.0 Gbps Full Duplex and used Task Manager to check my speed.

No difference...

So what does it do? And why do I see no difference?

Guy named Jon
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  • If you're downloading over a LAN, your best bet would be to put the file on a USB drive and transfer it that way. If you're downloading over the internet, chances are your LAN's ethernet isn't the bottleneck. You might try increasing TCP window size. [This guy](https://www.duckware.com/blog/how-windows-is-killing-internet-download-speeds/index.html) seems to have figured out one way to accomplish that. – Parthian Shot Feb 25 '16 at 03:21

1 Answers1

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In general, you always want to keep auto-negotiation turned on, unless the equipment on the other end is specifically set to a fixed speed.

If you turn auto-negotiation off on one end, and the other end has auto-negotiation turned on, the link may fall back to a slower speed, even perhaps as slow as 10 Mbit/s half duplex!

This is because the other side won't see any auto-negotiation, and therefore will fall back to a safe speed.

Even worse, using manual setup you can set up different settings on each end, leading to a link which will operate poorly or not at all.

The other end in this context will be the Ethernet switch you're hooked up to.

Short answer: If in doubt, turn auto-negotiation on, and don't manually try to force anything. You'll just create more problems for yourself if you do.

Per von Zweigbergk
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