Ethernet connection takes time to connect

[solidify]

For the last 5 years I had a MacBook Air that I connected to the router (Airport Extreme) wirelessly.

I recently got a new Mac Mini and love it. After 2 weeks of using it I realized that I could connect it with a Cat5 cable via the ethernet port. That is supposed to be better, so I figured "why not?".

FWIW, I have noticed no difference in performance. Even in high speed online games were latency counts, it seems to be exactly the same. Downloads are the same, etc.

But the one difference is that every time I wake up the Mac Mini I have to sit and wait for 5-10 seconds to get the internet connection re-established.

With Wifi, it is connected the second it opens. But with the ethernet connection, sometimes I have to wait for up to 10 second, no exaggeration. Other times it is less, but never less than 5 seconds.

Is this normal? I would think it would be reversed, that WiFi would take longer to connect than wired. Is there a way to fix this? Like not putting the network card to sleep or something?

 

[BrianBaughn]

If your ISP's connection isn't over a certain threshold you wouldn't get faster speeds via ethernet. Also, Cat5 is limited to 100Mbps. Try Cat6 if your ISP provides over that speed.

The reconnect lag is weird. Perhaps someone else has seen this.

 

[kaibob]

I have experienced the same exact issue with my 2018 mini; I did not have this issue with my 2012 mini running mojave. Other than the new mini, nothing else has changed--same ethernet cable, same ISP, same settings (afaik). However, I have not tried connecting to the internet with wifi.

BTW, my ethernet cable is connected to my wireless router which is connected to my cable modem. I'll connect the ethernet cable directly to the modem to see if that makes a difference, and I'll report back.

EDIT:

I disconnected ethernet and connected mini to internet with wifi. No lag after sleep.

 

[solidify]

My internet connection is 60Mbps with an average of a 9 ms latency.

I know that both the wired and wireless connections are faster than this so they are not the bottleneck, but people have always said that you definitely want to use wired and it's so much better.

But in my experience, there is no benefit, only the negative that I outlined above. It might seem like a minor annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless. Every time I sit there waiting for it to connect I have time to say to myself "Why not just turn Wifi on?" lol

 

[BrianBaughn]

Wired would eliminate any interference as well as the fluctuations that occur with wifi. You could just leave both on with ethernet set at the top of your “Service Order” in Network Preferences.

 

[Sarpanch]

My internet connection is 60Mbps with an average of a 9 ms latency.

I know that both the wired and wireless connections are faster than this so they are not the bottleneck, but people have always said that you definitely want to use wired and it's so much better.

But in my experience, there is no benefit, only the negative that I outlined above. It might seem like a minor annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless. Every time I sit there waiting for it to connect I have time to say to myself "Why not just turn Wifi on?" lol

I have a 1Gigabit connection and having used the LAN interface on a 2012 Mini and now on the 2018 Mini, I can confirm that I don’t find any lag or delay at all and internet works right away after waking the computer from sleep or a clean restart.