Early 2008 iMac with El Capitan not getting Gigabit speed

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Level 1

5 points

Early 2008 iMac with El Capitan not getting Gigabit speed

My devices on the network are getting/using Gigabit-esque speeds.

However my early 2008 iMac w/El Capitan (all up to date) is not using gigabit speed despite network utility showing it is seeing those speeds. I have switched out cables, etc, same issue.

Speed tests online show no more that 200 download/upload.

I also moved the computer to the switch on a known Gbps port and repeated speed test and same results.

Seeking advice on what to do next. Thanks!

iMac, OS X 10.11

Posted on May 13, 2021 6:53 AM

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Answer 1

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,700 points

May 13, 2021 8:22 AM in response to Levi Procter

+1 on Ikrupp's answer. Your expectations are not really realistic. If you want faster speeds you need to have the connection speed at the modem and the hardware in the home to support it, including the router and a new Mac that supports those speeds.

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Answer 2

May 13, 2021 10:07 AM in response to Levi Procter

Your physical layer Ethernet cable connection will show 1Gbps, but your real-world performance would be at best, an eighth of that (125 MBps) owing to 8-bits per byte. And that is very unlikely on a 2008 iMac with thirteen-year-old chip technology and by current standards, an ancient operating system.

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Answer 3

May 13, 2021 11:07 AM in response to Levi Procter

You are welcome.

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Answer 4

lkrupp

Level 6

14,416 points

May 13, 2021 7:54 AM in response to Levi Procter

Not much to be done with a 13 year old computer. It’s entirely possible that the 2008 hardware/software simply can’t handle it even if the iMac has a 10/100/1000 ethernet port.

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Answer 5

Levi Procter Author

Level 1

5 points

May 13, 2021 8:23 AM in response to rkaufmann87

Thank you for your replies. This is helpful information. I just wanted to make sure that there wasn’t some setting that I wasn’t accommodating to allow for those speech.

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