Well, I hate to keep flip flopping.
There are two things that are important here:
1. It works. Doesn't matter if what you did was the cause. Maybe it's True -- True unrelated, but all that matters is the last "true."
2. Your network is substantially better than it was before you made the changes.
Again, it could be that the NIC cards weren't negotiating properly or that the 100Mb switch was faulty. Doesn't matter now.
Just make sure your NIC cards are all set to autonegotiate. They will work better that way.
You could experiment if you wanted. Add the old switch to the new one and run a computer through that one. Change a NIC card back to 100. I doubt you get a full 100 when it is set up that way, nor do you get a full 1000 when it is set up that way.
