I've Been Maxed!

Had some problems getting on the Internet this morning. Went to my Vigor's
status page and saw my down speed shown as 7,616,000, SNR margin 5.5 and
Loop Att 42 - I guess it had just happened.

I went to the speed test at:

which said I was connected at 481Mb :-(

I then adjusted the MTU on my router and XP to 1500, re-booted the router
and the PC and re-tested with a result of 4.1Mb. A couple of tests since
show around 2Mb. I have also down-loaded a driver file from Nvidia, 61.1MB
with a d/l speed shown by Firefox as 446kB/s at its lowest.

I guess I'll have to see how it settles but in less than 2 years I have
gone from 'no likelihood of ADSL being installed' to 500K then 1MB and now
even faster - and it's a horrible wet day here with overhead 'phone lines.

There's a good speed test here:

There's also a useful analyser here:

(watch for wrap)

which will let you know if your MTU is optimised.

Flyiñg Ñuñ 2°°6 +...

Tried those - and yes my MTU is fully optimesed.

Did the speed test and got this:

« SpeedGuide.net Speed Test Results »
2705 kbps down (~2.71 Mbps, 330 KB/s)?
176 kbps up (~0.18 Mbps, 22 KB/s)?
2048 KB downloaded in 6.203 seconds
500 KB uploaded in 23.25 seconds
Tested on: 2006-10-05 08:09 EDT
Provider: plus.com
Test Validation ID:

download speed 2800 kbps upload speed 367 kbps. So how come the upload
speed is so much lower on speedguide, and how can I increase my download
speed - I was maxed about 4 months ago, and this is about the best I have
got so far?

Jeff Gaines...

That's very neat, like the speedo :-)

I would guess that differences will depend on where on the Internet the
files are being uploaded/down-loaded from - the further away the more
likely you will be affected by 'Internet speed' and less by your own

Flyiñg Ñuñ 2°°6 +...

Perhaps you'd prefer this one then. You can choose which server you want
to download from world wide, and it still has the speedo.

connection.

There is a BT test that you can connect to directly to take other things
out of the equation - but it means changing your connection details in
your router and then changing them back. I can dig out details if you want
them - but if (like my daughter) you have forgotten your ISP's connection
details then you could be in trouble!!!

Flyiñg Ñuñ 2°°6 +...

Tell me about it? I think you're referring to:
You can in fact use it with your normal connection as well, but if you do
the results aren't logged by BT so it's no good as far as they won't accept
the results you quote. Unfortunately when I try to connect to it either
way, it refuses to check my details and gives me the following error
message:
"Unexpected result received when querying the network to find your services
connection details." I have reported this to PN and I think it is probably
due to an ongoing problem with my connectio - ie I get disconnections in the
evenings usually randomly in the 17-30 to 22-00 time slot. Thes occur
regardless of whether whether the computer is on, hibernating or off. No
problem other than each one is accompanied by a reduction in synch rate. I
believe this is keeping my stable rate at only 3000 kbps whereas the BT
engineer who visited my premises reckons I should synch at between 5.5 and
6.0 Mbps It's never been higher than 5100 kbps and that was ages ago.

Flyiñg Ñuñ 2°°6 +...

Since typing the above I have retested using the PN connection, and this
time after several minutes I was asked for my usual login so they could
check the details. After a further few minutes the following test result
emerged:

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:
IP profile for your line is - 3000 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 4416 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 2722 kbps

If you wish to discuss these results please contact your ISP.

If you are experiencing problems with specific applications, servers or
websites please contact your ISP for assistance.

Your test has completed please close this window to exit the performance
tester.

In the past the only figure that was quoted was the IP throughput achieved,
so it looks like for the few weeks I was unable to connect to them they were
upgrading. Who knows - perhap we're getting there, lbeit at a winter
snail's pace.

Jeff Gaines...

I think we should regard it as a miracle that ADSL Max works at all -
rather than being surprised when it's slow :-)

There's a lot of 'gotchas' which nobody has come clean about - contention
being one of them as well as ancient 'phone lines with oxidised wire and

Flyiñg Ñuñ 2°°6 +...

So did you like the http://www.speedtest.net site?

poor connections.

Mike Tullett...

I think you use Vista as well. I've found download speeds there are some
40% higher than in XP. I guess it is partly down to the new TCP stack and
how it doesn't use fixed values for MTU and RWIN. Tests by MS have shown
vast speed improvements.

Jeff Gaines...

I haven't fired up the Vista box recently - I'll give it a try :-)

Flyiñg Ñuñ 2°°6 +...

That's worth knowing Mike. Now will this Vista thingy be free? :) I gues
not :(

Mike Tullett...

You're correct - it certainly won't be free. There will be several
flavours of it, right up to the so called "Ultimate Edition, I'm testing
here.