Reasons Why Your Ethernet Connection Is Slow
When you’re working from home, it is imperative that your internet is working quickly and smoothly. Anything less, and your poor connection may negatively impact your productivity by forcing you to come to a halt at an inconvenient time…typically while you’re in the middle of an important task or drafting an urgent email. To strengthen your internet, you may utilize Ethernet cables instead of Wi-Fi because this method is generally more reliable. However, you may still run into problems even after making this switch. Avoid frustration by checking to see if any of these possible reasons why your Ethernet connection is slow applies to you.
Your Computer Is Infected
No matter how stable your network is, if your computer is weighed down with viruses and malware, it may cease to function optimally. These malicious programs run behind the scenes, messing with your computer’s operations and collecting your data. They can then send back this information to the hackers who created them, occupying a portion of your bandwidth. Due to these processes, a computer infection can slow your internet, as well as your computer overall, in addition to causing other problems. You should use antivirus software to scan for viruses and malware and eliminate them.
Your Hardware Is Limiting
At times, your home internet service is sufficient for your work activities, but you may still experience sluggishness with your network. In this situation, it may be that your hardware is limiting you. Take a look at your router, modem, network interface cards, and/or cables. Find out if they are outdated or cannot support the speeds you want. If a component is inadequate, replace it with a suitable version. You may also try reconfiguring your router.
Your Connection Is Too Long
A reason why your Ethernet connection is slow that you may not have considered is having excessively long cables. When speaking of a connection that is too long, we refer to the physical distance between two devices in your network, such as your computer and the router. Just as a Wi-Fi signal grows weaker as you get farther away from its source, Ethernet cables have a limit beyond which their performance diminishes. No matter what type of cable you use, the maximum Ethernet cable length between devices is 328 feet. If you have a channel that goes past this, your internet will noticeably drop off in responsiveness. Reposition your workspace and hardware and shorten your cables as needed to solve this issue.