Internet Problems

# 1 23-03-2007 , 09:08 AM

Subscriber
Join Date: Jul 2004

Posts: 1,257

Hello,

I'm sure that there are communities for this kind of question but as this is the only online community that I'm part of I thought I'd ask here first.....

I was hoping that someone here might be able to answer a couple of questions that I have regarding my internet connection as my ISP keeps on fobbing me off with answers that they're reading from the screen in front of them.

Basically my issue is that when I connect to the internet my downstream speed is registering as 3840Kbps and my upstream is 448Kbps, there is only one computer, that I am aware of, attached to my internet connection so I should get relatively good download speeds.

Unfortunately the download speeds level out at around 16.8Kbps which is a joke really and my ISP have no idea what is wrong. Anyone got any ideas?

I had a paranoid thought that my internet connection could be being used by outside parties as a sort of network which would explain the terrible download speeds, could this happen or have I been watching to much television?

If this can happen, is there anything that I can do about it as my ISP is truly rubbish at helping me out?

Cheers for any thoughts,

Mat.

Quote

# 2 23-03-2007 , 09:24 AM

Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2006

Location: Bulgaria, Vidin

Posts: 1,310

You have some worms , some sort of viruses .. ? scan .. if u dont have ... try reinstall windowsa ... if there is no problem Long time ago i watch one friend of mine who use Snitcher to steal internet from other people ... and The other people don't have internet at all or at low speed ... thats what i know good luck ... ( you can check the cables if they have some cuts or lan card ... ) There can be many reasons for that .. i hope you find the way to fix your problem user added image

Art Director
www.sevenbullsgames.com

Quote

# 3 23-03-2007 , 09:26 AM

Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2005

Location: Boston, MA

Posts: 2,314

this might help (though i doubt it) but it is only for Windows PC. open the command prompt and type in: ipconfig /all

and then type in: Ipconfig /release

and then: ipconfig /renew

then see if it works :-D user added image

Environment Artist @ Plastic Piranha
www.joopson.com

Quote

# 4 23-03-2007 , 10:09 AM

Subscriber
Join Date: Jul 2004

Posts: 1,257

Cheers for your thoughts,

Joopson, good idea but the commands didn't make any difference, cheers anyway.

Coldwave, I've run Norton, Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D. Nothing bad to report from them though. I'm not too sure that re-installing windows will make any difference but if all else fails I may resort to that as a final approach, hopefully it won't come to that though!!

Is there any way I can find out if people are using snitcher or something similar on my line?

Thanks,

Mat

Quote

# 5 23-03-2007 , 10:54 AM

Moderator
Join Date: May 2005

Location: Manchester Uk

Posts: 6,300

In general, depending on your ISP you dont get what they say you do as its a shared connection that you get with a maximum speed (that is if no one else on the PCP is on it you get the full lot), also depending on the "pecking order" of your ISP is dependant on the level of service you get, as yout in good ol blighty, BT and NTL are the ones that give out the lines, all the others have to hire the lines form these two, and these people can then sell to other ISP's etc etc.

How have you tested your download speed? If your doing an FTP then it could be the max of the issuer??

The ip config /release and renew only work if your configuring a router/ network

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

Quote

# 6 23-03-2007 , 11:20 AM

Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2006

Location: Bulgaria, Vidin

Posts: 1,310

Originally posted by happymat27
Cheers for your thoughts,

Joopson, good idea but the commands didn't make any difference, cheers anyway.

Coldwave, I've run Norton, Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D. Nothing bad to report from them though. I'm not too sure that re-installing windows will make any difference but if all else fails I may resort to that as a final approach, hopefully it won't come to that though!!

Is there any way I can find out if people are using snitcher or something similar on my line?

Thanks,

Mat

Originally Posted by

I don't have a clue i just watch a friend doing the snitcher things ... and it worked he was downloading with 32 K and get speed of 300 k ... Sry but i don't have a clue if it's not one of the things that i mention user added image

Art Director
www.sevenbullsgames.com

Quote

# 7 23-03-2007 , 11:26 AM

Subscriber
Join Date: Mar 2005

Location: London

Posts: 1,135

the speed will never be wat ur ISP quotes

also how far away are u from ur telephone exchange - this makes a lot of difference
my friend live a bit away from his and as a result only get crap speed

also ur computer - clean up all unness files and defrag ur comp speed dramiticall changes up internet speeds

also check for new firmware for ur modem/ router

Now at SMU doing BSc 3D Computer Animation so its hard to get on here
My wire render tut https://forum.simplymaya.com/showthre...threadid=20973

Quote

# 8 23-03-2007 , 06:05 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2006

Location: /dev/null

Posts: 891

The ISP is not the only external 'force' determining your internet speed, the telecom company that controls and maintains the actual infrastructure (phone line, fibre optic) also determines the actual speed of a connection due to things like faults (they have to use one line to handle two) and other hardware things like the computers they use to manage their infrastructure (if one broke).

A bit off topic here, but I remember when I enquired about the unsually slow internet speed I was getting, a 'technical support specialist' convienietly 'blamed' the problems on the telecom company which led to a week of being bounced between the two before my ISP finally admitted they changed the phone number to their 'premier' server and 'forgot' to email me the changes.

Quote

# 9 23-03-2007 , 08:39 PM

Moderator
Join Date: May 2005

Location: Manchester Uk

Posts: 6,300

Mat you could run a tracert to try and see if theres a point that it slows down, just to see if its at your end, BT/NTL or further on.

I did one once when I had a slow connection and it ended up that it was at the exchange (they were installing the new Digital subscriber network) so some lines were multiplexed up quite high and hence giving a slow connection. But when I tracerted it it showed that there wasnt a porblem on my side as it went from my pc, to my router and then onto the network, slowed down at the next couple of hops, then speeded up.

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

Quote

# 10 23-03-2007 , 09:07 PM

Subscriber
Join Date: Jul 2004

Posts: 1,257

I really appreciate your thoughts on this one, cheers.

My service provider is BT so I should be getting what they say as they own the line and I'm alittle less than 1 mile from the interchange. I keep my computer clean (antivirus, anti spyware, ad-aware, defrag if necesarry etc. once a week.). I don't know about firmware, but the router is brand new so I should imagine that it's up to date.

The thing is that until a few days ago I had no problems at all and then all of a sudden my download speed dropped dramatically. The attached images are a shot of my hub homepage, it's real time so the speeds should be accurate, and also of the download screen as I try to get stuff from university (they have amazingly fast internet and before the speed drop I downloaded from them at speeds in excess of 300Kbps). I admit that I'm a bit of a dummy when it comes to internet jiggery-pokery but the numbers that I see just don't add up, it's as though my connection is being syphoned off before it reaches my house.

Architect: you've reminded me of a time that I wasn't with BT for my internet and they gave my connection to someone else, leaving me with nothing.

Cheers again for your thoughts,

Mat.

Steve: you made a new reply as I wrote this, what option do I select when I tracert?

Attached Thumbnails

Click image for larger version

Name: bt.jpg
Views: 307
Size: 85.7 KB
ID: 33634

Last edited by happymat27; 23-03-2007 at 09:10 PM.

Quote

# 11 23-03-2007 , 11:19 PM

Moderator
Join Date: May 2005

Location: Manchester Uk

Posts: 6,300

Hi Mat,

To do a tracert you need to go to Run, then type cmd hit go (like in doing the Ipconfig) then in that black and white screen type in tracert, then a space, and a website say www.simplymaya.com then hit enter, it will sohw you the nodes that it passes (you should see your pc frst then the address of the router, then whatever it goes to next as well as a time saying how long it takes, if one part takes ages to get thorugh that might be the bottle neck.

Also even thought its BT you still dont get what they say you do, the connection's shared from the PCP (the green box at the end of the road) so it might be that someone else has signed up and are downloading constantly, thus slowing your connection (not pinching it).

Also your download speed that your showing might be the maximum upload from the site your downloading from. Is the prob just from that site or on all sites??

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

Quote

# 12 24-03-2007 , 12:30 AM

Subscriber
Join Date: Jul 2004

Posts: 1,257

Steve,

it's all sites, I chose the university site as an example as I know that it has a very good download rate. Other examples I could use are that it took 5 minutes to download the updates for Ad-Aware, something that normally takes a couple of seconds and that from Norton I downloaded updates this morning that amounted to 650k which took more than 5 minutes.

I tried the tracert thing that you suggested but didn't really understand the results, thanks for trying though.

I spoke with a BT 'technical expert' this morning but once again he just gave me answers from a troubleshooting program, very frustrating. After an hour and a half he suggested that he would send out an engineer as he couldn't find anything wrong from where he was:headbang: :headbang: :headbang:

Fingers crossed it'll get sorted in the next couple of days,

thanks again for peoples thoughts on the subject,

Mat.

Quote

# 13 24-03-2007 , 12:53 AM

Moderator
Join Date: May 2005

Location: Manchester Uk

Posts: 6,300

It might actuall pop back up to speed in a few days. all depends on if there doing something at your local exchange (dosent really matter after that as the network then has multiple routes) and they wont tell you if they are doing anything!

The tracert shows the time it takes to get from one node to another. so if you have a long time between the hops thsn that might be where the problem is.

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

Quote

# 14 24-03-2007 , 02:15 AM

Subscriber
Join Date: Jul 2004

Posts: 1,257

I just got a voice text from BT saying that my connection should be fixed now. Lo and behold I'm now happily downloading my university coursework video files at 350Kbps, happy days!!

Later,

Mat.

Quote