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How To Check Network Card Speed (LAN Speed)

Find out how fast your network card is

5 min. read

Updated onFebruary 28, 2024

updated onFebruary 28, 2024

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Key notes

Your PC’s network adapter card connects your PC to the Internet. If you’ve ever wondered what your network card connectionspeedamounts to, there are various ways to check its linkspeed.

Follow along as we will show you how to check your network card speed and answer some of your most asked questions.

Let’s see how you can check your network card speed in Windows 10 without additional software without further ado. Keep on reading!

How can I check my network card speed?

1. Use Network monitoring software

Some network-monitoring software includes monitoring tools that provide network cardspeeddetails. For instance, Paessler PRTG is a highly-rated network monitor with a Windows Network Card sensor. It can help you test your network speed very easily.

That sensor is handy for monitoring bandwidth and provides extensive network card stats.

Aside from its wide range of network sensors, PRTG has extremely flexible alerting features. For example, it incorporates 13 alert mechanisms for unusual metrics detected.

PRTG users can choose email, SMS, SNMP trap, push notifications, and slack messaging messages, among others, to keep them notified.

Other useful Paessler PRTG features

PRTG

This is one of the easiest ways to check your network card speed in Windows 10, so try it out.

3. Check network card speed via Settings

This is another fast and easy method to check network card speed in Windows 10.

4. Check LAN speed in cmd

5. With PowerShell

The above methods for checking network cardspeedprovide valuable insight into your network card’s theoretical maximumspeedand other technical specifications.

How can I change LAN speed from 100 to 1000 on Windows 10?

The Gigabit Ethernet protocol, much like its predecessor, supports operation in either the half-duplex or full-duplex mode.

When using the full-duplex mode, frames move in both directions concurrently across two channels on the same connection. This results in an aggregate bandwidth twice as large as in half-duplex mode.

Is there an Ethernet cable speed limit?

The speeds attained through an Ethernet connection are often constrained by the particular Ethernet cable installed.

The maximum data transfer rate for a Cat5 connection is 100 Mbps, while the maximum data transfer rate for a Cat5e and Cat6 connection is 1,000 Mbps, and the maximum data transfer rate for a Cat6a connection and above is 10,000 Mbps.

The type of Ethernet cable you choose will not have a significant effect on the overall performance of your home network, and this is true for the vast majority of home networking setups.

How do I find my network card specs?

Lastly, we recommend you look at our list of the8 best bandwidth limiter tools for Windows 10/11. In case you want to monitor your Internet speed, we have a guide on how to use aNet Speed Monitor Windows 11, so don’t miss it.

Was this a helpful guide to you? Don’t hesitate to comment in the section below and share your opinions with us. Thanks for reading!

How To Check Network Card Speed (LAN Speed)#

How can I check my network card speed?#

1. Use Network monitoring software#

PRTG#

2. Via the Network and Sharing Center#

3. Check network card speed via Settings#

4. Check LAN speed in cmd#

5. With PowerShell#

How can I change LAN speed from 100 to 1000 on Windows 10?#

Is there an Ethernet cable speed limit?#

How do I find my network card specs?#