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I bought this USB-A 3.0 to ethernet adapter, connected it to a usb 3 port, and i'm only getting about 300mbps, tested and confirmed with iperf3:

iperf3

So i started investigating and USB Device Tree Viewer is reporting a USB 2.0 link: USB Device Tree Viewer

I downloaded and installed the latest Realtek drivers, nothing changed. My Windows 11 is fully updated.

So then i i bought the USB-C version of the same adapter, connected to a USB-C port on the same laptop and I instantly got USB 3 speeds:

iperf

and iperf3 also reports 1Gbps.

What is going on?

Update 1:

I tested the adapter on a desktop Windows 10 PC and it IS recognised correctly as USB 3: USB Device Tree Viewer

So i tested it again on a second desktop PC running Xubuntu and it's also working correctly.

So is this a laptop specific issue?

Update 2:

After further testing, it looks like only windows 11 machines have this problem.

Also, if i connect the device, use the "restart port" feature of USB Device Tree Viewer, it is then recognised as USB3

I tried on 3 different windows 11 laptops, even brand new, same issue on all of them.

Teemo22
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  • Have you contacted the manufacturer or store about this? Guessing its a cheap USB connection to realktek chipset. The english datasheet makes no mention of USB3.0, but I know the page & pictures do, I wonder if they cheaped out on the USB-A connection so dropped it to USB2.0 – gregg May 27 '23 at 14:23
  • "connected it to a usb 3 port" - Are you certain? – Joep van Steen May 27 '23 at 14:41
  • @gregg they do state "Data transfer up to 5 Gbps" in the datasheet... i borrowed an asus usb-a 3.0 to ethernet based on the ax88179 and the same damn thing happen... – Teemo22 May 27 '23 at 14:45
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    @JoepvanSteen 100% sure, here's my laptop specs https://it.dynabook.com/discontinued-products/portege-x40-j-14m/ – Teemo22 May 27 '23 at 14:45
  • @Teemo22, I see. I guess it could have to with mechanism like described here https://superuser.com/a/1347446/705502 – Joep van Steen May 27 '23 at 15:38
  • Do you have another PC to try these USB network adapters on? [You mentioned](https://superuser.com/questions/1786174/usb-to-ethernet-adapter-stuck-at-usb-2-0-speed?noredirect=1#comment2792236_1786174) TWO different ones had the same issue so it seems related to your laptop, your [3rd link](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jDYD0.png) USB Device Tree summary section shows USB Version 2.1, Port Max & Connection speed both High-Speed which is USB2, then Device Max speed is SuperSpeed which confirms device is USB3 so issue seems to be laptop tech specs lied, wrong driver, or wrong driver setting – gregg May 27 '23 at 16:13
  • Wrong root/intel/chipset USB driver is what I meant on previous comment, not realtek driver – gregg May 27 '23 at 16:20
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    @gregg i did try them on another pc and they behave exactly the same. For usb device tree, port 4 and port 14 are the same physical port but usb 2.0 devices are mapped on port 4 and usb 3.0 ones on port 14 – Teemo22 May 27 '23 at 17:42
  • If two network adapters claiming to be USB3 (super-speed), operate as USB2 (high-speed) in two different PC's on their USB3 (blue?) ports I'd suspect its the cheaper adapters then the PC's, although it could still be the PC's. While the network chipset might support USB3 the manufacturer could have cheaped out with USB2 circuitry. Check BIOS settings to ensure USB mode. Device Manager, right-click properties on this USB network & open USB, Advanced tab to confirm settings aren't somehow reverting to USB2 for backwards-compatibility – gregg May 27 '23 at 20:34
  • Maybe try live linux on one of this PC's to see how USB network adapter works there by chance its a shitty Windows driver causing USB2 – gregg May 27 '23 at 20:35
  • @gregg original post edited with more tests... – Teemo22 May 29 '23 at 10:19
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    On the original/affected laptops: 1)Did you try with linux live (booting Ubuntu or Debian from CD/USB w/o installing)? That would confirm if its a windows/driver issue 2)Does ANY USB3 device work? 3)Did you check the BIOS any setting with USB? 4)Confirm/load driver from working PC to not working PC by chance its a driver (%WinDir%\inf\oem76.inf & %WinDir%\System32\drivers\rtux64w10.sys; v10.19.705.2017) – gregg May 29 '23 at 12:26
  • @gregg it looks like this is a windows 11 specific issue – Teemo22 May 30 '23 at 07:25
  • Are they using same driver version as Win10? Maybe driver is indeed simply incompatible with Win11, product sale page does only mention win10. Right-click network card in device manager, properties, events tab will show driver update dates/time/files. Maybe win update is giving and/reverting to a bad driver so, hard to block win update driver updates, but is is possible – gregg May 31 '23 at 23:23
  • win 10 driver [here](https://ibb.co/ZzFk3c3) , win 11 driver [here](https://ibb.co/r5bPs7t) looks about the same to me – Teemo22 Jun 01 '23 at 07:37

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