# What's the best proggie to determine why my cable connection is slow? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 9, 2001, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-proggie-to-determine-why-my-cable-connection-is-slow/86335 "2001-10-09T15:16:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-proggie-to-determine-why-my-cable-connection-is-slow/86335/1 "2001-10-09T15:16:45Z")
I need an idiot proof one. When my connection is slow I’d like to at least be able to say that there is nothing wrong with my line, etc. Whether it’s just server congestion. I don’t know how to ping stuff or do any of that whatever it is. Any recommendations. ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-proggie-to-determine-why-my-cable-connection-is-slow/86335/2 "2001-10-09T16:07:53Z")
Chances are, there is “nothing wrong with your line”. Cable users are just like users on a network, and the cable “modem” you have is just an ethernet connection. You are suffering slow down because your “network” is congested with users. The cable company has too many people (for your sake) hooked up on the same network. Also, most cable systems have uploads limited to 56k or 112K, since some cable uploads are actually done through copper telephone wire, not the coaxial cable you would think of. ---
**Author:** ![micco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f8ce5/32.png) [@micco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/micco)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-proggie-to-determine-why-my-cable-connection-is-slow/86335/3 "2001-10-09T16:23:15Z")
Here’s a couple of bandwidth speed check sites. [http://computingcentral.msn.com/internet/speedtest.asp](http://computingcentral.msn.com/internet/speedtest.asp) [http://www.2wire.com/services/bandwidth.asp](http://www.2wire.com/services/bandwidth.asp) These can only measure the throughput between your box and their site, but if one particular site seems slow to you, this might help pin down whether the bottleneck is on your end or theirs. If you’re using Win32, open a command prompt and try these two commands: ```auto ping domain.com tracert domain.com ``` where [domain.com](http://domain.com) is the domain name you’re interested in. Ping will give you round-trip timing. Tracert (trace route) will show you the actual router hops between your machine and the destination. Both provide some useful trivia, but won’t specifically answer “is my line bad”. ---
**Author:** ![Mac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@Mac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mac)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-proggie-to-determine-why-my-cable-connection-is-slow/86335/4 "2001-10-09T16:28:53Z")
This sounds like what you might be looking for. [http://64.29.193.182/internet/default.asp](http://64.29.193.182/internet/default.asp) ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2001, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-proggie-to-determine-why-my-cable-connection-is-slow/86335/5 "2001-10-10T02:49:14Z")
Here’s a ZDnet article that’s a nice introduction to the process of [Resolving Web Bottlenecks](https://boards.straightdope.com/www.zdnet.com/computershopper/stories/reviews/0,7171,2418937,00.html).