When you say 'right port' I assume you are using 'right' as in 'correct' ports. Vs left/right 🙂
I have used lots of different switches. Netgear and TRENDnet at the moment. The 16-port switch is a Netgear unmanaged gigabit switch (all the switches are gigabit and unmanaged switches).
I have another netgear switch in the living room that further splits the Ethernet drop so I can service the Apple TV and the Internet connected TV, plus give me an Ethernet connection for my laptop if I need it for faster Mac to Mac data transfers.
At work I have a TRENDnet servicing the equipment in my office (iMac, Macbook Pro, Windows laptop; but in the past there was a Linux box, and at one time in the past a PowerMac G5; equipment comes and goes over time).
When dealing with Ethernet connected devices, you should always check your cables. I've had situations where a cable went back (maybe it was marginal to begin with and over time maybe a contact oxidized, or a bit of cable broke after too many times bending back and forth). I've also had a situation where I used a cable that came with something else, but the cable was really only 4-wires, and I could not understand why the iMac to Macbook Pro transfer speeds were limited to 100 megabits, when the Macs and the switch were all capable of gigabit transfers. Turns out a 4-wire Ethernet cable is ONLY good to 100 megabits, and the Mac only talked 100baseT instead of 1000baseT.
The moral of the story is always check your cables. Swap them with other cables to see if the problem moves with the cable, or goes away if one of the cables is out of the circuit. It is a pain in the *** to test your Ethernet cables, and many times will not be the problem, but when it is the problem, it is wroth the effort.
