You are currently viewing the Spectrum Community Archives
This content may be outdated or inaccurate
All posts are closed and commenting has been disabled

If you have a question or comment, please start a new post (registration is required)

Leave the Archive

Hitron EN2251 connects at 100Mbps when plugged into 1000 Mbps WAN port on router

MrVivona
MrVivona Posts: 3 Spectator

I recently had to replace a failed Spectrum modem (Arris TM1602) which worked fine with my Linksys EA7300 router, providing over 200Mpbs speed tests on devices connected to the router LAN ports. All cabling is Cat6e.

After installing the replacement modem (Hitron EN5521) I noticed that my speed tests dropped to 90 Mbps. I checked the status LEDs on the EN5521 and see that it connects at the 100 Mbps rate (no green LED) despite being plugged into the WAN port on the Linksys which is rated at 1000 Mbps. I tried the usual troubleshooting of reboots and cable switching, but the EN2251 output stays at the 100 Mbps rate.

If I connect the EN5521 directly to my PC that has a 1000 Mbps card, it does recognize and connect at 1000 Mbps and the download speed test is the advertised 200+ Mbps rate. So this problem seems to be related to compatibility with the Linksys EA7300.

Any ideas on how I can get the EN2251 to recognize the 1000 Mbps rate when connected to my router?

Has anyone else run into this problem?

Does anyone have a Linksys EA7300 router that connects to an EN2251 at 1000 Mbps?

I would appreciate any help.

Best Answer

  • RAIST5150
    RAIST5150 Posts: 918 Contributor
    Answer ✓

    Oof... sounds like that port indeed has gone bad.

    IDK of that router has the Dual WAN option or not (will likely be a feature you can toggle on the WAN page), but may want to poke around in the manual/config to see if you can assign one of the LAN ports as a failover port for the WAN. It isn't a very common option on regular consumer grade routers until you get to the higher end of models, but if it is there it can be a work around. Buy some time until you can get your hands on a replacement.

Answers

  • Randy_S
    Randy_S Posts: 514 Spectrum Employee

    Good afternoon and thank you for reaching out.

    What subscription speed are you signed up with for us? That is the speed you should be getting through the modem/router. Your router may be capable of 1000 Mbps (a gig) but unless you have our gig service you wouldn't get that.

    And depending on your tier of service with us, fluctuation in speed is normal; especially over wifi.

    Randy

  • MrVivona
    MrVivona Posts: 3 Spectator

    As noted, I am subscribed for 200 Mbps and I get in excess of that if I connect the modem directly to my PC's NIC which is rated at 1000 Mbps. It is only when I connect to the WAN port of my router, also rated at 1000 Mbps, that the modem Ethernet port drops to the 100 Mbps rate. It is a case of the speed sensing circuitry of the modem "thinking" that it is connected to a 100 Mbps Ethernet port when I connect it to my router.

  • RAIST5150
    RAIST5150 Posts: 918 Contributor

    Just spitballing some ideas you can try... some may sound odd, but have seen weird things over the years...

    Has the router had a full reset back to factory defaults? (mostly just to rule out something weird like bad ARP cache data and such).

    Could also look into the firmware angles too... either an update, or a manual downgrade.

    Could try connecting the PC to the router's WAN port to see what speed the PC negotiates in it's properties page.

    Could be a quick and dirty way to focus in on whether it may be a WAN port or cable issue. If it still negotiates 100 with WAN to PC port, could start swapping cables to see if you get a gigabit link on one, and then try that as the WAN uplink cable to the modem.

    While it may be a long shot, there could be an issue with the router's wall wart. If it is no longer supplying enough power, or is otherwise "dirty", it can cause weird things to happen. Reducing wifi radio power (or turning them off) and seeing the behavior change could be a pretty good indicator of this. May even see things clean up if you just plug it into a different outlet too if that line has taken on a heavy load or become noisy as well.

    Have seen some routers misbehave if advanced router functions related to hardware acceleration somehow get disabled. Doubt it would monkey with port speed negotiation, but you never know how they may behave when everything gets dumped on the CPU suddenly. These should be enabled by default these days, so a full factory reset SHOULD rule this out, but it may be something to check on just to be sure.

  • MrVivona
    MrVivona Posts: 3 Spectator

    RAIST5150, Thanks for the great ideas. I gave most a try and here are my results:

    Linked PC to router WAN port with a short and known good cable. Connection speed 100 Mbps. The same cable connected to each of the router LAN ports connected at 1000 Mbps.

    Tried several short and known good cables to connect modem out to router WAN port and the LED indicator light on the modem Ethernet port indicated 100 Mbps (no green LED). Connecting the same modem cable to the router LAN ports connected at 1000 Mbps. So the modem is sensing a 1000 Mbps connection at that point.

    Reset router to factory defaults, same results.

    I haven't yet checked the router's wall wart power supply. I have a box of wall warts and will see if I have one of the same voltage, amps and polarity to try. At the very least, I can check the original wall wart output voltage to see if it is normal.

    I am thinking that there is something that has gone bad with the circuitry of the router's WAN port that prevents it from going to 1000 Mbps. This is likely because the reason I had to change my modem was that the original modem's Ethernet port stopped working after a lightning-caused power failure. Since that port was connected to the router's WAN port, it stands to reason that the same event killed some of the routers WAN port circuitry. By the way, the same event also bricked my Ooma VOIP phone box.

This discussion has been closed.