Downloads really slow on 1GB Internet

[Josh Hearn]

So my first week on Windows 10 downloads and internet speed were fast but have since went down the drain. From big files to small files. I couldn't figure it out. So to fix this...

1. Updated network drivers
2. Ran Ccleaner and checked dns cache
3. Rebooted PC
4. Windows 10 is fully updated and drivers also

I than called my ISP and upgraded from 100Mb internet to there fastest package 1GB based on maybe I was just running out of bandwidth (which was just a guess, but knew with 1GB internet absolutely everything should be burning fast) and tech at the house said he was getting 900Mb wired and 300Mb wireless. Prior to the upgrade. Was 80Mb wired and 30-35Mb wireless

I was going to run a program through IE or Chrome that can tell if my ISP is throttling me back but need to download Java Runtime to be able too and that 44mb Java app has taken 9-10 minutes to download.

I haven't ran the package to see if my isp is throttling me or not but any kind of download should be lightning fast now. But everything is just as slow as before my upgrade. The first week on windows 10 and on windows 8.1 was just so much faster.

I wanna repeat that for the last 6 months on 100Mb internet there has been nothing but speed. 5mb torrent downloads. Fast app downloads from other sources. YouTube buffered really fast. The only thing that seems faster now is webpage loading which seems really snappy.

 

[realwarder]

Connect directly to your modem. Run speed test. See if issue is modem or router etc.

 

[realwarder]

Not many people know that it takes a Special, very fast router to make use of 100mbps+ connections. But your Java download speed sounds much slower than anything even a router could cause. More likely bad Wi-Fi.

 

[Josh Hearn]

So I moved my wireless router closer to the me and my roommates bedrooms and hard wired my pc to the router. The tech was getting 900Mbps wired and 300Mbps wireless. How was he obtaining those speeds. Hardwired I'm now getting 95-97 Mbps checking on various speed sites like Comcast, etc. Speedtest sucks and won't go past 50Mbps. My laptop is capable of 300Mbps as its 802.11b/g/n. My router as per specs in the manual can achieve 300-450 Mbps. So whats the missing link. Surely they have 100Mbps and 1Gb packages available through Isps because people can obtain faster speeds. But why would EPB sell me a package with there own supplied router if the speed difference wasn't going to be dramatic if they could have gotten an extra $10 or so a month throwing me towards one of there newer routers. I will pay for it if that's the problem. Now the internet now hardwired is really really fast but still only 10% of what the tech at the house said it was putting out. I know real world you can only get a certain amount of that speced speed.

But if my pc can get 300Mbps and my router can support 300Mbps and my internet is putting out more than 300mbps something is holding that speed back one way or another.

 

[tgp]

If the tech was getting 900Mbps, the issue must be with your equipment. Do you have another computer you can use to check? Preferably one not running Windows 10 if you suspect that. Even if the problem turns out to be your computer, the issue is likely not Windows 10 itself, but maybe a driver issue or something.

 

[AndyCalling]

Firstly, networking is not an easy IT topic to get to grips with. Wireless networking, doubly so. There have been attempts to make it seem easy but it does not take a lot to peel back the varnish and get a glimpse at the depths beneath.

The figures the service chap was quoting may well have been the speeds he was getting transferring data over your local LAN. Not the internet. Just a guess. Very few companies provide 1GBit speeds over the internet to home users. In the US Google do this in a few spots I hear. You will find that such speeds are useless for an individual connection and only become useful if you have many people doing things simultaneously.

Are you sure you have a 1GBit connection to the internet? Could it be that you have a 1GBit connection from your wired PC to your router (a gigabit router) which is what you've been upgraded to, rather than 1GBit actual connection from the router to the internet? Perhaps done because it has better wifi (up to 300MBit, again between laptop and router not router and internet)?

Wifi is a whole other game. You can study the details yourself online, but I recommend you set your router to 2.4GHz mode at 150MBit (or 144MBit, however it is displayed in the router settings) with a single channel (not a 'wide' or double channel). For most people this is the simplest way to get the best speed at a given distance for most of your range, except when you're in the same room as the router at which point you may as well use wired. I know, sounds odd, but that's the way it (mostly) works. You can then expect to get half the wifi connection speed in real world transfer rates (so expect about 60 to 75MBit real world transfer speeds via testing web sites whilst using wireless, so long as the sites are not overloaded, they are close and your wifi is getting great reception).

Note that speed testing web sites will rarely be able to test a 1GBit connection. Your ISP may provide a test site for such, or may be able to advise a site. If not, try downloading many (many many) things at once from servers you know the max speed of. Testing 1GBit connections is going to be tricky as you'll find you're more often testing the speed of the server provision rather than your own connection.

Note that few things will be able to use even 100MBit speeds for a single task. For example, downloading from Steam over my 160MBit connection gets me ~20MBit as Steam can only do that at a max (in my area). Origin, on the other hand, has excellent servers and will push ~160MBit for a single download (perhaps more, if you have a faster connection than me). Origin servers are exceptional.

Try Pingtest.net - The Global Broadband Quality Test to see if you have issues that need an ISP engineer to fix. Do these tests on your wired connection.

UPDATE: I see they do provide two tiers, 100MBit and 1GBit. I suspect, unless you have a very large household, you have been over sold as 1GBit is tough to make full use of without a large family. With a fully working 100MBit, you will likely never see speed problems for a family of 4 (for example). Try PingTest on wired to see where the fault lies.