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It works with up to 100mbps, and it shows in Network as "USB 10/100LAN", but I know it can do up to 1000mbps, but when trying to add + a new interface, the "USB 10/100/1000 LAN" does not appear as an option. The rest of the dongle works. Ethernet adapter works up to that speed.

How can I make the Mac recognise the full speed of the dongle, namely connect under a "USB 10/100/1000 LAN" connection and actually run full speed?

It says in the box 1000mbps.

enter image description here

I had another adapter, different model, that stopped working, that did show as "USB 10/100/1000 LAN", and did run close to 1000mbps in tests.

enter image description here

It reaches 1000mbps in other laptops and the seller has confirmed other clients, presumably using other laptops or OSs, don't have the problem.

It's a non-branded dongle. I have tried installing Realtek drivers but it didn't solve the problem.

enter image description here

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    Make / Model? What does it show in About This Mac - System Information - USB? Are you plugging the Ethernet cable into a Gigabit switch, etc?
    – James Brickley
    Dec 17, 2020 at 5:04
  • What makes you certain that it can do 1,000mbps?
    – Scottmeup
    Dec 17, 2020 at 8:29
  • Thanks to both. I answered in the body of the question.
    – Norbert
    Dec 18, 2020 at 14:23

1 Answer 1

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Judging from your screenshots it seems like the LAN cable is not directly plugged into your Mac, instead:

LAN cable → USB 2.0 Hub→ 4-port USB 2.1 Hub → USB 3.1 MBP Controller

USB 2 spec does not allow for high speed data connection like 1GBit/s. As mentioned in the system report, the maximum speed is 480MBit/s. Therefore you can't establish a 1000MBit/s connection.

As long as you have one device in this connection tree that is not at least capable of USB 3.0 speeds, you will not get the faster 1GBit/s speed on your LAN connection.

Edit: There is another faster 4-port USB 3.1 Hub being mentioned in the system report. I think that since your dongle has so many ports, it also has two different controllers that are being recognized by the Mac and shown as separates Hubs, although they are one dongle.

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  • Nice catch. That's likely the problem. It's common for USB 3.x devices to fall back to USB 2.0 speeds when plugged into a USB 2.0 port since it's often preferable to work at 1/2 or 1/10th the speed than not work at all.
    – MacGuffin
    Dec 21, 2020 at 20:45
  • Yes! I had a similar problem where my hard drives would (due to slow USB Hubs) drop from ~200mb/s read/write speeds to as low as 30mb/s. Also the USB 3.x naming is really confusing.
    – X_841
    Dec 21, 2020 at 20:48
  • You say "There is another faster 4-port USB 3.1 Hub being mentioned in the system report, connected to a different MBP port." In fact there is only one dongle connected to the port, and nothing else other than the power cable. All ports, I believe are the same in the 2020 macbook pro, which is what I'm using. Nothing else is connected to the dongle. I'm adding a photo of the dongle. So far this doesn't solve the problem. The dongle appears to be 1000mbps capable, yet doesn't work at that speed when connected to a USB 3 capable port.
    – Norbert
    Dec 21, 2020 at 21:27
  • I See. System report from the screenshot definitely tells us that there is some USB 2.0 connection limiting the speeds. Please edit your question and add those details, maybe a link to the dongle would be helpful too. Depending on your Mac model the ports are not the same : forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/06/03/…
    – X_841
    Dec 21, 2020 at 22:02
  • Now after thinking about the second mentioned USB 3.1 port: this is most likely the same dongle but it needs two USB controllers for all the different connections it offers, which then show up as two separate devices. Interesting though that the LAN port (at least on macOS) shows up as connected to the USB 2 controller/Hub. How did you verify that speed is 1GBit/s on other hardware? Did you use something like speedtest.net or just rely on system information?
    – X_841
    Dec 21, 2020 at 22:10

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