Why?

Because it's a pain in the ass getting the steps down and then it's either hot as a mother up there or freezing.  And it's not filthy, but it's a little dirty.  It's just not something I enjoy doing more than once or twice a year.

System monitor will show current network speeds. ISTR it might also show up in the boot log.

Thanks Smiffy - that got me the info I need.

Ours is in our office-type room (possibly sounds more grand that it really is, just a spare room that's being decorated at the moment). It's just a pain when you're already knackered walking up loads o' stairs, sounds lazy I know, but I was falling asleep very early last night.

Actually, still haven't checked the colour of the lights on the router, but Smiffy got me the info I needed.

Don't keep us hanging here. Was it running at 1000 mbit or not?

Turns out my crappy laptop doesn't even have gigabit ethernet (couldn't remember the specs myself, so I erred on the optomistic side). :C

Still haven't been able to verify my ethernet cabling's capable of running at gig speeds though. Gonna have to wait until I've built my HTPC.

Aren't the cables fairly new? I seem to remember you posting about wiring the house up.

I'm running a gigabit network where some bits are old Cat 5 (not 5e). Speeds could probably be a little quicker but they're much faster than 100 mbit.

That's right - it /should/ be gigabit but i had to run the cable quite near some mains cable in places, so I'm hoping there's no interference. I could end up with a bathroom light scenario... I've tested the cables with a bog standard tester, so i know there's no breaks, just not what speed it'll handle.

After the bathroom light issue I'll definitely be more careful when I have my own place and run the network cable.

Aye. In a perfect world I'd have gone CAT6 STP, but I'm way too tight. As long as it's quick enough to stream media I'll be happy.

You do find out a lot about how your house is built when you take up floorboards and get inside cavities (NJ). In my case, it's all held together with sealant and caulk. Also a big job turned into a bigger one when I found the floorboards in our attic are pretty much past it, so had to replace a load of those as I went on. Made the cabling easier though.

"Cavities" gets an NJ, but you're OK with caulk!?

I fail to see what could possibly rouse John's interest when it comes to caulk.