Slow Download speeds

[Gyn_Paul]

My PC is running perfectly normally: it had firewalls, virus checker, and regular spyware disinfection, yet my internet connection is running slower and slower. It's posted as 602kb - hardly blistering speed anyway, but then we are nearly 5 kms from the nearest FT junction box - but now when I run Internetfrog to measure the speed it's coming out at 86.2 kb down and 82.5kb up. I've not touched any settings, not have I physically changed anything with the phone wiring. Short of soldering the wires to the filter I can't see how else to make a better connection.

Any thoughts, anyone?

p

[clarksinfrance]

at 5kms I'm surprised you get more than 512Kb, as its about as far as ADSL goes, unless you have ReADSL? That said, have you tried reseting your MODEM/ROUTER? it may help. If you can't find the reset button, just unplug it for a few seconds, then plug it back in and wait for it to do its thing.

[Deimos]

What are your Attenuation and Noise Margin figures like.  They can have a major effect on performance.

Ian

[Gyn_Paul]

[quote user="Deimos"]What are your Attenuation and Noise Margin figures like.  They can have a major effect on performance.

Ian[/quote]

Well re-booting the modem has had some effect: down speed is now 121kb - nearly as good as the ISDN service I had 4 years ago!

Attenuation (I assume that's affaiblissement) is 57dBs. Where would I find the noise figure?

Actually, the odd thing is that now that I look at the degroup listing, the estimated max download for my number  (in ordinary ADSL) has gone up from 602kb, which has been for a year or so, to 940kb, and yet the actual performance is worse  [8-)]

p

[clarksinfrance]

FT may have completed some works on the exchange, or phone lines in the last year, which will have some effect on the transmit speeds, but also as more people sign up for ADSL, and use the exchange, it will mean you will loose speed.

[AnOther]

I've tried lots of similar test sites and Internetfrog is pretty well the worst of the lot consistently under reporting by a wide margin. I have a rock solid 2mb connection yet the frog claims it to be just over 0.5mb.

To get a truer indication it's best to check with multiple sites, such as can be found HERE, and then average it out.

If you can find out your stats, usually available in your router somewhere, you can enter them HERE for a calculated estimate of your line's capabilities.

There is a link to a site showing you where to find the numbers for many popular routers.

THIS site is quite useful. Instead of relying on pretty dials or graphs you actually download a test file and time it, as real a test as you will get. As an example I can download the last file in 41 seconds.

At 5km you are pushing the limits and the fact that it has changed may be down to a fault on the line which would not neccessarioly evidence itself on the phone.

You need to get those router/line stats and write them down so you can tell if they are varying significantly. 

[Deimos]

[quote user="Gyn_Paul"][quote user="Deimos"]What are your Attenuation and Noise Margin figures like.  They can have a major effect on performance.

Ian[/quote]

Well re-booting the modem has had some effect: down speed is now 121kb - nearly as good as the ISDN service I had 4 years ago!

Attenuation (I assume that's affaiblissement) is 57dBs. Where would I find the noise figure?

Actually, the odd thing is that now that I look at the degroup listing, the estimated max download for my number  (in ordinary ADSL) has gone up from 602kb, which has been for a year or so, to 940kb, and yet the actual performance is worse  [8-)]

p

[/quote]

Noise and attenuation should normally be available in your ADSL box.  Different boxes have completely different user interfaces (for configuration, diagnostics, etc.) so I cannot make any "do this or that" suggestions.

That attenuation is quite high.  An FT engineer who came round to diagnose some ongoing problems I had last year (where they eventually replaced the phone cable between me and the next junction box 1Km away) said that Noise level must be >4db and Attenuation level must be <70dB.

Mine runs well at 1MB with Attenuation (dB) up/down =  29.5 / 45.0 Noise Margin (dB) up/down = 27.0 / 27.5 (and would apparently run a lot faster with those figures if I paid for a faster service).  When I was having problems I found the noise was the main one that changed and the 1MB link got a bit "iffy" (intermittent) when the noise got down to around 10.  In fact in my case (which was a "worn cable" it tended to be the noise that changed and caused the problems).  I am listed as being 4Km (cable distance) from the exchange.

I have noticed that whilst my ADSL box would set a lower speeds when the line became poorer, it always seemed to select a speed a bit to fast with the result it because intermittent rather than slow.  I expect that this might be a function of my ADSL box.  also, 1st time the FT engineer came round he changed a capacitor in the main junction bow where their cable first enters the house.  Apparently loads of older such boxes have the wrong capacitor and this can affect ADSL quality.

One of the issues with rural lines is where they run through trees.  Apparently as the tree moves it wears away the insulation and eventually lets in water.  If this happens you will notice that a heavy rain storm or damp spell will make things a lot worse and things get better as it dries out.  However, in my experience (or rather in my case) I found FT very reserved about replacing the cable.  They would come round, say "its a cable fault and the cable team will call round to change it) but then 2 weeks later when the cable team arrive we have been through a dry spell and it works great and they test it, find nothing wrong and go home.  It took real persistence to get them to sort it out.  But now its been done the connection is excellent and rock solid.

Ian

[Btuckey]

[quote user="ErnieY"]

I've tried lots of similar test sites and Internetfrog is pretty well the worst of the lot consistently under reporting by a wide margin. [/quote]

I use http://myspeed.visualware.com/ and find it very accurate.

Cheers.

[chirpy]

I have in the last few days very slow downloading speeds and what took seconds can now be a minute and so frustrating i switched the computer off.I do not know much about them but have neuf which worked ok for 2 years with a usb link but gave no connection one day .

A  france telecom engineer sset it up with a lan link and this worked ok for past 6 months until this week.the speed is 10mbps.

any ideas for a non computer expert.

thanks.

[Gyn_Paul]

[quote user="Ab"]

I have in the last few days very slow downloading speeds and what took seconds can now be a minute and so frustrating i switched the computer off.I do not know much about them but have neuf which worked ok for 2 years with a usb link but gave no connection one day .

A  france telecom engineer sset it up with a lan link and this worked ok for past 6 months until this week.the speed is 10mbps.

any ideas for a non computer expert.

thanks.

[/quote]

I think you'll find that is the speed of the lan between your PC and the modem/router, unless of course your ISP is actually in the flat next door !

p

[chirpy]

Every thing is on same desk as it has been for 6 years .

Is the phishing filter slowing things down as I had not noticed this icon before.

Today after reading your reply I had to wait a minute before the reply to your message opened up for me to type this!!!!!

thanks in anticipation. 

[Danny]

to find out if the phishing filter is slowing things down (although I would suspect it isn't) - go to

tools/phishing filter/turn off automatic website checking

to disable it

Danny

[AnOther]

Phishing Filter ?

What have you recently installed or updated ?

Try this:

Go Start - Run, type in CMD then enter.

In the window which pops up type:    ping 192.168.1.1

Post back the results. The time should be in the very low m/secs

What this does is communicate with your router and will tell us if the delays are occuring between that and the PC.

NOTE: 192.168.1.1 is the most common default address for routers but I can't guarantee it is for yours. 192.168.2.1 is sometimes used.

If neither provides a result, i.e. you get "TTL expired in transit" either look in the paperwork for the router for the correct address or tell us what make your router is.

If the result from a ping is satisfactory then go HERE and enter  http://google.com   and hit Start. After a few seconds you will get some results which will show you how many hops the test has made between you and Google and how much delay there is on each one which may help you see where or what is slowing you down.

This is a free test but you only get 3 or 4 goes before it blocks you.

Hope this helps.

 

[Gyn_Paul]

If you know when the problem began (aprox) then you could aways try rolling back your computer to the day before this.

START / HELP & SUPPORT / 'Undo changes to your computer with SYSTEM RESTORE'

then follow the instructions.

If you've never used this before then you should know it only affects system and software changes, not things like any emails received or files created in the intervening period.

p