Broadband speed problem

Factual Questions
1

Signed up with Cox broadband cable a few months ago, and while it is a vast improvement over dialup, the download speeds are nowhere as fast as they advertise. They just upgraded and say now it should be 6Mbps.

Every Pitstop test have done shows in the range of 460-480 kilobits.

I’ve done all the things they recommend, shutting down the modem, bypassing the router, clearing the cache, shutting down, one by one, antivirus, antispyware, ZoneAlarm, etc. Then shut them **all ** down at the same time, still get same results.

Using 98SE, have 512 RAM, some 60GB free on my HDD. Everything else on the computer works just fine, always delete all temp files, use Memory Cleaner to free RAM, do defrag & houskeeping chores frequently, so am baffled.

When I had dialup, still got connection speeds of around 48K on a 56K modem, which isn’t bad and would seem to indicate nothing on the computer is causing the problem.

The incoming cable from the entrance is new and the latest, so that should not be it.

Just called tech support and they did ping and other tests and insist the speed is “awsome” and it must be something in my computer.

Anybody got a clue, or suggestions of what else can try?

2

First off, let’s make sure you aren’t making the very common kilobits to kilobytes conversion error. Speeds are advertised in kilobits per second. Users usually measure their download speed by kilobytes per second that is displayed on your file download.

Therefore 6 mb/s would enable you to download files at 750 kilobytes per second under perfect conditions. That depends on the server being able to send the file that fast and they usually can’t 300 - 500 kilobytes per second would be more typical real-world speeds.

Assuming the above doesn’t apply, there are a number of utilities that tweak your internet settings for better performance. Windows isn’t set up by default for really fast internet speeds and these utilities can make a dramatic difference. It is a one-time change to some setting and you don’t need the utilities after that is done.

I got good results from a utility suite called System Mechanic. It is free to try and it’s internet tweaker will leave the settings even if you uninstall it. There are a number of others. I believe there is a site called SpeedGuide with all sorts of registry fixes you can apply.

3

I think it has to do with upload speeds off the servers you are DL’ing from. My DSL is 2.3Mbs theoretically, but I usually DL at 335~350 Kbs (I might have my Ms and Bs and Ks mixed up). I’m supposed to be 3Mbs down, 450kbs up or something.

I’d say you have pretty awesome speeds as it is.

4

I

I definitely listed the dreaded Bytes vs bits figures correctly, hence my chagrin at the slowness.

I tried your suggestion of a trial ver of System Mechanic, just doing the speed tweaks (after backing up the registry), and by golly, the speed went from around 460 bits/sec to 3848, a remarkable improvement.

The tweaks that were supposed to speed up Win bootup did not make much difference, but the price of the free trial version sure was worth it. :slight_smile:

I’ll play around with the other features, but looks as though it will be worth buying. The Speed Guide site looks interesting, but will take a bit of study before trying any of those. I’ve messed about in the Registry before (after facking it up), so will be fun to see what those tweaks do.

Thanks muchly for the suggestions.

5

Glad it worked for you. Others may want to try it too. These changes are permanent. You can take off System Mechanic and they will still be in place as long as you select the options to leave things as they are. It is a pretty good suite to have though if you like it or want to express appreciation.

Once you have gotten dramatic results like that, you might as well declare victory and move onto something else. That is about as good as it gets. Some people get obsessed with internet speed tweaks and convince themselves that all kinds of obscure tweak are getting them an extra 20 kbs when it is really just normal fluctuations.