Testing cables with a PC

Is there any software which will turn a PC into a cat6 cable tester?

Following on from this , I have a cat6 cable I need to test.

My cheap connectivity tester reports it's OK, and the lights on the switches and gigabit NICs connected to it report it's running at 1000bps. But it's really slow in one direction.

Is there such a thing as software which will run basic speed tests on a cable? I don't expect the full functionality of a hardware cable tester.

I have installed the Nvidia version that came with some machines we built a couple of years ago ( It even told you the cable length). Not sure if it would help in this case.

I might be better to take the pc and plug into the stick directly with a know good cable to see if problem goes away. If problem is still there its not the cable, more likely to be NIC, port on switch or even AV software thats to blame.

Thanks.

I've done my own crude test with 2 PCs with gigabit NICs and tried copying large folders between them and timing the copy with a stopwatch. I've tried several cables and switches, and combinations of the two.

I think that kind of test is largely dependant on the performance of the PCs especially the HDDs, which are getting used heavily in the tests.

I just wondered in there was any (free) software that could do a better job. I only have one suspect 30m cat6 cable between 2 rooms. It's only £20 to buy a new one, so don't want to spend too much time any money on the testing.

Some of the Intel Pro set network adapters come with a tray utility that includes basic network testing abilities.

I never thought of that. The NICs I'm using are Intel Pro/1000. I'll give the Intel tools a try later.

Thanks.