pistonbroke Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 Chaps, I'm having an issue with my Broadband speed at the mo and thought I'd run my symptoms past you to see if you can help. Ok, about a year ago, I had 20mb broadband from Virgin and all was good, I hit 19.8 on Speedtest.net without any problems. Then when my wife lost her job, I started skimping on luxuries so dropped the connention speed down to the 10mb to save money. During this period of 10mb I changed OS from xp to vista 64. There wasn't any issue as I was still hitting speeds of 9.8 on the speedtest. The other day though, I changed from sky to the whole virgin media TV/phone broadband package and upgraded again to the 20mb broadband. Straight away I was seeing speedtest.net speeds of between 11mb and 13mb. I was told it may take a couple of days to get up to full speed so I tested it again a couple of days later. After the time had past, I tested it again but still no improvement. Back on the phone to virgin CS again, after a few tests, they suspected that my modem might be at fault so they sent me a new modem. I recieved it today at had iot activated over the phone. A speedtest showed no improvement, but the indian guy on the phone told me to wait half an hour and try again. After an hour, still no improvement in speed. Phoned up CS again and spoke to a very knowlegable Indian fella who said it was vista causing the problem. At first I didn't believe him but he told me to do the following. Remove my netgear router from the equation and wire the PC direct to the cable modem. Then go to device manager and change the speed/duplex settings to 100mb/s half duplex. I carried this out and did another test, sure enough, 19.8mb download speed. My problem now however, is when I put the netgear router back in, my download speed drops back to the 12-13 speed again (this is all wired with ethernet BTW, no wireless or USB use at all) My router is a Netgear w624 v2. I've looked in the routers setup page but there is no option to change a 100mb/s half duplex like I have on device manager. I've updated its firmware to the latest version, but still no joy. Any ideas chaps? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wkdtime Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 Chaps, I'm having an issue with my Broadband speed at the mo and thought I'd run my symptoms past you to see if you can help. Ok, about a year ago, I had 20mb broadband from Virgin and all was good, I hit 19.8 on Speedtest.net without any problems. Then when my wife lost her job, I started skimping on luxuries so dropped the connention speed down to the 10mb to save money. During this period of 10mb I changed OS from xp to vista 64. There wasn't any issue as I was still hitting speeds of 9.8 on the speedtest. The other day though, I changed from sky to the whole virgin media TV/phone broadband package and upgraded again to the 20mb broadband. Straight away I was seeing speedtest.net speeds of between 11mb and 13mb. I was told it may take a couple of days to get up to full speed so I tested it again a couple of days later. After the time had past, I tested it again but still no improvement. Back on the phone to virgin CS again, after a few tests, they suspected that my modem might be at fault so they sent me a new modem. I recieved it today at had iot activated over the phone. A speedtest showed no improvement, but the indian guy on the phone told me to wait half an hour and try again. After an hour, still no improvement in speed. Phoned up CS again and spoke to a very knowlegable Indian fella who said it was vista causing the problem. At first I didn't believe him but he told me to do the following. Remove my netgear router from the equation and wire the PC direct to the cable modem. Then go to device manager and change the speed/duplex settings to 100mb/s half duplex. I carried this out and did another test, sure enough, 19.8mb download speed. My problem now however, is when I put the netgear router back in, my download speed drops back to the 12-13 speed again (this is all wired with ethernet BTW, no wireless or USB use at all) My router is a Netgear w624 v2. I've looked in the routers setup page but there is no option to change a 100mb/s half duplex like I have on device manager. I've updated its firmware to the latest version, but still no joy. Any ideas chaps? I put it down to possible Firmware issue, have you tried installing the Tomatoe firmware (Much more functionality), run a search in google, it may resolve your problem. Also try and put your LAN IP on the DMZ of the router thus bypassing firewalls etc.Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meko Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 Phoned up CS again and spoke to a very knowlegable Indian fella who said it was vista causing the problem. At first I didn't believe him but he told me to do the following. Remove my netgear router from the equation and wire the PC direct to the cable modem. Then go to device manager and change the speed/duplex settings to 100mb/s half duplex. I carried this out and did another test, sure enough, 19.8mb download speed. My problem now however, is when I put the netgear router back in, my download speed drops back to the 12-13 speed again (this is all wired with ethernet BTW, no wireless or USB use at all) My router is a Netgear w624 v2. I've looked in the routers setup page but there is no option to change a 100mb/s half duplex like I have on device manager. I've updated its firmware to the latest version, but still no joy. Any ideas chaps? This part has confused me. He said it was Vista causing the problem but when you dropped the router out of the equation - it worked. So it's obviously not Vista. The W624 v2 has autosensing for the duplexing, so it detects what's going in and then renegotiates that port to match it. So you can run 10 half / full or 100 half / full. If you've got a firewall on your PC, try disabling the firewall on the router and see if it increases the performance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abz Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 This part has confused me. He said it was Vista causing the problem but when you dropped the router out of the equation - it worked. So it's obviously not Vista. The W624 v2 has autosensing for the duplexing, so it detects what's going in and then renegotiates that port to match it. So you can run 10 half / full or 100 half / full. If you've got a firewall on your PC, try disabling the firewall on the router and see if it increases the performance. I'd go with this, but remember just disable the firewall on the router and not the local PC. If you need help accessing your router, let us know. You should be happy really, I live dead bang in the centre of London & only getting 0.5 mbps! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imi Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 If all you are wanting is to run the router at 100MBb Half duplex then switch your network adapter on your PC to half duplex and the netgear router should auto-sense and set itself up to match that. I also agree that it sounds like a firmware issue with the netgear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pistonbroke Posted November 12, 2009 Author Share Posted November 12, 2009 I put it down to possible Firmware issue, have you tried installing the Tomatoe firmware (Much more functionality), run a search in google, it may resolve your problem. Also try and put your LAN IP on the DMZ of the router thus bypassing firewalls etc.Good luck. Cheers mate, I read on other forums yesterday about people using tomato with routers but couldn't work out what it meant. I've tried the DMZ thing, it made no difference. This part has confused me. He said it was Vista causing the problem but when you dropped the router out of the equation - it worked. So it's obviously not Vista. The W624 v2 has autosensing for the duplexing, so it detects what's going in and then renegotiates that port to match it. So you can run 10 half / full or 100 half / full. If you've got a firewall on your PC, try disabling the firewall on the router and see if it increases the performance. When he said it was vista, he told me to change the duplex to half from auto. This made it full speed when direct to the modem. So clearly something in vista makes it slower. I've disabled the firewall along with the wireless in the router settings, but it still slows it down. I'd go with this, but remember just disable the firewall on the router and not the local PC. If you need help accessing your router, let us know. You should be happy really, I live dead bang in the centre of London & only getting 0.5 mbps! Blimey, 0.5mb/s, I'd not be able to live with that If all you are wanting is to run the router at 100MBb Half duplex then switch your network adapter on your PC to half duplex and the netgear router should auto-sense and set itself up to match that. I also agree that it sounds like a firmware issue with the netgear. I'm starting to think this. Having done more reading yesterday, turns out routers have to actually work quite hard, whereas I assumed they just pass a signal about like a junction box. turns out there's a fair bit of processing going on. I've also read that a lot of cheaper routers can't even manage the 20mb speed in bench tests, despite saying 100mb capable. I think my old netgear maybe on it's last legs. What do people think of Edimax stuff, my dad is telling me to go for an Edimax wirelss N jobby for about £50? Thanks for all your help anyway chaps Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pistonbroke Posted November 12, 2009 Author Share Posted November 12, 2009 ARRRRGH!!, just tested it again through the router this morning about 10 times......consistently hitting this speed. So now it's decided to work yet all that I've done is gone to bed and slept. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 It all depends what times you are trying these tests at. I struggle to get 20mb after 5 o clock on speedtest.net. It also depends which area on speedtest I try, some are MUCH faster than others. I don't trust speedtest for internet speed, I trust newsgroups. My guess is that your internet has been fine all along and it is in fact speedtest that has been at fault. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaveriK Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 Welcome to the frustration of working in IT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pistonbroke Posted November 12, 2009 Author Share Posted November 12, 2009 It all depends what times you are trying these tests at. I struggle to get 20mb after 5 o clock on speedtest.net. It also depends which area on speedtest I try, some are MUCH faster than others. I don't trust speedtest for internet speed, I trust newsgroups. My guess is that your internet has been fine all along and it is in fact speedtest that has been at fault. Nope, it's my connection. Downloading from dedicated servers see's the relevant download speed to what my speedtest connection speed is. At the mo, it's d/loading at 2.6mb's per second. Yet yesterday I couldn't get more than 1.7. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 Nope, it's my connection. Downloading from dedicated servers see's the relevant download speed to what my speedtest connection speed is. At the mo, it's d/loading at 2.6mb's per second. Yet yesterday I couldn't get more than 1.7. 2.6 Thats the highest I have ever heard of from a UK 20mb line. It's also more than 20mb/s. Not sure then. I normally see between 1.7 & 2.3 depending on the time etc. Sorted itself now though so thats good Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meko Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 When he said it was vista, he told me to change the duplex to half from auto. This made it full speed when direct to the modem. So clearly something in vista makes it slower. I've disabled the firewall along with the wireless in the router settings, but it still slows it down. it'll just be that the modem can only run at 100mb half duplex. 100mb full duplex is a lot faster so if the modem could run at 100mb full duplex it'd have worked straight away. That's the thing with them there Indian call centres, they just read stuff off cards and tell you what they're told to tell you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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