I am trying to set up a connection between 2 pc's. It's a direct cable connection. The problem that I am having is that the connection isn't gigabit. I know both network cards support gigabit. I checked in the device settings and in one pc I can see in the Speed & Duplex the 1Gbps option but on the other pc I can't see that option despite the fact that the network card is gigabit.

I have quite some files to copy from one pc onto another and I really need a good connection between them. I can't really remove the hard drive because it would void the warranty.

Could this be a driver issue or a cable issue? On both pc's I have windows 8.

The network card on the pc that doesn't have the 1 gbps option is an Atheros ar8161 card.