Broadband testing

E

Eärendil

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 22, 2004
Messages
106
I recently benchmarked my cable speed and found out it was running at nearly half the speed of a typical comcast subscriber. Should be getting about 4mb down (now I hear it's raised to 6), but I'm only getting about 2.4 or something like that.

I have a Linksys router w/4 port switch at 10/100. Does 10/100 not go fast enough to keep up with the 6mbit down? Any ideas on why the service is so bad? Yes, I have the connection shared but nobody's browsing or downloading on the network, just me.

If there's a list of "things to check for" that'd be great!

Cheers,
~E
 
first bypass your router.... go directly from your PC into your modem... and do the bandwidth test then... 10/100 means that if both your NIC card and your router can run at 100mbps they will... if 1 is 10 and one is 100 they will run at 10... so if both are 100 (which is most likely true enless you have a really old nic or just bought a crappy nic) that shouldnt be slowing you down... and if the direct test does not change anything i would call you cable company.... also when you do the test test with the router then as fast as possible w/o the router... when did you do the initial test also?
 
Erm, I've been doing various sites for the past week. Right now DSL reports is showing only 1.1mb down I'm retesting because I had a BT client open :D. It's not a peak time (almost midnight here) so we'll see how this test goes, then I'll do what you suggested but my roommates aren't too keen on losing precious WoW for the next 1 whilst I test so I'm probably going to have to postpone further "modem only" tests.

~E
 
The chances of you hitting your full potential on cable are virtually nil because cable internet sucks. It doesn't have anything to do with your router, believe me. The modem is at 10 Megabit. Your router does 10 and 100 Megabit.

The reason it is so bad is most likely that you are sharing the grid with too many other subscribers. Unlike DSL, cable is shared bandwidth, based on grids. The more people you have concurrently using the bandwidth, the slower your connection goes. I would switch to DSL if you have that option in your area. I love mine and the speeds are consistent. I went through cable hell and never again. They get less than a warm reception when they show up at my door trying to solicit my business.
 
It's possibly your modem is an older model which has trouble handling the 6Mb download speed. Typically speaking, you shouldn't have much trouble getting 6Mb down with Comcast.
 
I'm aware of the differences between dsl and cable, however, even on a bad "hour" I get over 2mb down. I don't believe the shared grid to be the problem considering I'm online until the wee hours of the morning and there's barely anybody on. Which suggests the problem is a little more "local". Now that my WoW entrenched roommates are at work, I will be testing the connection in various ways. Thanks all for your participation in the thread here. I'll post the results when I'm finished.

~E
 
If all else fails, you could ask Comcast to flash the firmware in the modem for you. They can do that.
 
The guy is from UK not America so I doubt he has comcast. Also make sure most of the bandwidth reporting sites are near you or else it pinging a server a few thousand miles away is not optimal to test your speed. Otherwise try to find a modem optimizer program if all else fails. They do make some for Cable modems. Last option is reformat
 
reformat?.... um that wont affect network speed enless you have a TON of spyware.... also remember the cable company say you have UP TO a certain speed... they dont have to guarnentee that speed like an ISDN line would be.... i would try to do a test locally, if you are in the UK that is....
 
Wait, who's from UK? I've got comcast :confused:

Anyway, I guess our modem was old, slightly fried, and tweaky. We spent 50 bucks, got a DLink 202 DCM annnnnd...just pullled 1.2mb/sec off a MS server. :D

Problem solved!
 
" I had a BT client open"
Sorry you never said you had comcast and BT is usually a UK thing. My bad :)
 
Hey, work with what ya got ;) I just downloaded a 3.49 gb iso of SuSE 10.0 in about ohhh...a short time....weeehoOoo! Now I'm going to browse the deals forum for hardware etc. Thanks all for the replies. (adds to friends list)

~E
 
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