Cable broadband wireless FAST/wired SLOW

Ratboy

I had trouble with my old style modem of late, and cable sent me a free suerhub. Great! No need for my router anymore.

Then they said they were going to upgrade my 10Mb to 20Mb foc, excellent!

When the deadline for this came and went, I rang them up, asking when it will be done, and the lady said OK done it, but its 30Mb foc, not 20Mb anymore. Brilliant!

Checked it out, and was indeed getting faster, but not 30Mb, upto about 18Mbits at peak times. (on one computer, and 8Mbits on other computer, and 21Mbits wireless)

So asked them why, and they decided to send an engineer out(!) Sure enough - slower than expected (especially when using FB, it seems to cause iexplorer to get memory holes, and iexplorer needs shutting down then loading again to restore action);

So the engineer installs a new superhub, and speeds go upto 21mb on 1 computer and upto 11Mbits on 2nd computer and 32Mbits wireless (!)

I've run every defrag/cleaning/virus checking program that I can lay my hands on, but cannot get the speed to increase.

I've speeded up ie8 slightly from it's memory holes by resetting IE settings. But cannot manage 30Mb wired.

I've even found a spare NIC, stuck that in, connected both to the superhub, and bridged them in the vain hope that it might have better bandwidth or something, makes no difference. What, if any is the benefit/damage that doing this can cause?

The engineer stated that because I have a 10/100 NIC, that may be the issue, and I need a 10/100/1000 nic ???

Checking out Google, there have been firmware issues on the superhub the last time speeds were upgraded, as most posts seem historical (2011-).

Please don't advise to fit wireless nic's into my desktop PC's, that is counter intuitive, there is clearly some issue here, and the wireless laptop used, and both attached computers are all roughly the same spec, Athlon 2800, 1Gb ram, XP (old but does what I want).

They are refunding me £10 this month for my inconvenience, but surely, if they say they provide upto 30Mb, and a wireless laptop receives it, then surely wired should do the same?

kwikbreaks

If you have one computer doing 32Mbps then there is nothing wrong with your connection.

Are the two wired slower computers rather old? You mentioned IE8 which is two versions behind current suggesting they could be.

How are you measuring your speeds?

You don't need a gigabit ethernet port to support 30Mbps but you do need at least 100Mbps. I can't imagine yours could be 10Mbps only as they haven't been around since the turn of the century. One thing to check in the advanced settings for the network adaptor is that it is set to full duplex. I doubt it is dodgy cables but they too are worth checking visually for damage.

I suspect the reason will turn out to be old slow computers and/or an unreliable speed test site.
Try http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html and http://www.speedtest.net/index.php

They are both more than capable of supporting 30Mbps - my 60Mbps cable tests....

Ratboy

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/button/13655520662325483415-mini.png

http://www.speedtest.net/result/2634918151.png

Kwikbreaks - Did you read the computer specs I posted above your post? All 3 computers have a 10/100 nic card (that is what they are called, not 10 or 100), and all have the same spec, as above. But one is wireless.

So, as you can see above, thinkbroadband gives me 30Mb, then tested seconds later, I get 20Mb from speedtest....from ONE COMPUTER.

kwikbreaks

Ratboy wrote: »

Kwikbreaks - Did you read the computer specs I posted above your post?

Yes that's why I suggested it could be slow computers. The Athlon 2800 isn't much better than a netbook and XP gets clogged with junk over the years so could be running really badly by now.

Rapidly varying speeds over the same path are a typical symptom of congestion. Over different paths (ie to different speed test sites) they don't prove anything much.

I've never used the Preston server but testing it now shows no problem. Of course tings could be differnt at peak times...



Your line quality of C+ suggests there may be significant jitter which is a sign of congestion.

Virgin have form for letting segments of their network get very badly congested before fixing them.

Set yourself a TBB ping monitor up - http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/monitors.html

Lots of blue and yellow plus probably some red will confirm it's congestion

Ratboy

I'm sorry kwikbreaks; but either you are unable to digest the issue, or read the thread correctly, no abuse meant...

ALL the computers have been scanned, defragged, checked, rechecked, and the most clogged computer is the wireless laptop, running the equivalent of athlon 2800, next clogged is mine, 2800 Athlon, the least clogged is my partners computer 2400 Athlon, with NO major programs installed.....

But the latter has the worst connection, when you would think it's the best.

Mine is clogged with software, but gets a 30/20/8Mb response, then a 20Mb response from 2 different websites?

Unable to test against the laptop, as it is portable, and taken away.

So, it's proved that those speeds can be acheived, either wired or wireless, but depends on who is testing them?

If VM accept that speedtest.net is an industry standard, then I'm not getting what I'm paying for, even if they upgraded it. Good of them to do so, but if they then go Indian Giver, they said 30Mb, give 30Mb. I just can't understand how wireless is faster than wired, and a computer loaded with stuff, bridged connections, is slower than a raw computer, with nothing installed.

*edit - my partners computer also shows 30mb, from the website provided, but 8Mb from speedtest.net? HOW do you explain the differences

Chickabiddybex

Use Chrome not IE, it's much safer.
(And people like me will stop bugging you to use it!)

Ratboy

Chickabiddybex wrote: »

Use Chrome not IE, it's much safer.
(And people like me will stop bugging you to use it!)

I've tried the speedtest via Chrome, and the results were WORSE!

Everytime I use Chrome, I get a pop up, you need this plug in, that plug in....grrrr!

kwikbreaks

Ratboy wrote: »

I'm sorry kwikbreaks; but either you are unable to digest the issue, or read the thread correctly, no abuse meant...

Maybe not but it's enough for me to say I'm out of here. No loss in your opinion obviously.

DCFC79

I've not had a problem with chrome as you describe. You tried firefox ?

Enterprise_1701C

With your wired computer, is there any way you can try it on another ethernet lead? It could be something as simple as the connections, but if you can run an ethernet between the computer and the hub then at least you could potentially eliminate that problem.

Ratboy

Enterprise_1701C wrote: »

With your wired computer, is there any way you can try it on another ethernet lead? It could be something as simple as the connections, but if you can run an ethernet between the computer and the hub then at least you could potentially eliminate that problem.

Yeah, that was one of the first things tested, from a mangy bit of CAT3 cable to shrouded connection CAT5e (presumably CAT6 spec), makes no difference.

If Virgin Media are happy to reduce their bills due to this issue, then there clearly is an issue, not related to my computer; they are losing money because of this. Otherwise they wouldn't refund the bill. But it seems that the speeds are attainable.

But I can't get my head round why 2 computers next to each other have such a variance in speed?

The problem must be between the street box, cable from that and the superhub? Maybe it costs more to dig the road up to every house, than refund £10 every month to every customer in the land?