PC vs Laptop FTTC bandwidth

Morning,

Had FTTC installed this morning, so after the engineer went I tried a few speed tests on my laptop, these peeked at 42mbit using the speedtest.net test on the Maidenhead server. Very happy considering im on a 40/2 connection! Anyway, went up to my PC used the same server on the same speedtest site and I had 32mbit... strange. Plugged my laptop into the same cat5 my PC uses and its showing 42mbit again!! Updated my NIC drivers to the latest version from Intel and its now hitting 37mbit, although it seems to instantly go there and not move at all, almost though its being limited. Now don't get me wrong im more than happy with 37mbit but I find it very strange that my laptop is reporting 5mbit faster using exactly the same cable, the same speedtest site and the same speedtest server... Not sure what to try next, I have nothing on my PC to limit downstream speeds!

Dan

Edited by c0dec (Fri 25-May-12 11:40:30)

operating systems ?

Some Antivirus suites are causing slowdowns as well.

There are various things within the PC that can limit the speed, more and more people are seeing these symptoms as BB speeds increase.

You will find that the physical components can limit the speed and the different settings can limit the speed.

There are lots of different settings that all have an effect. You need one of the experts on here to give you some ideas..

Do both machines have the same OS, Clock speed, RAM, hard drive speed, CPU, drivers, swop space, MTU settings etc.
Is the laptop more modern, is the PC running more software..


Machines can even slow down over time as they heat up, especially true of laptops but also PCs if ventilation is poor (dirty filters Etc). We have one PC in the attic that we take the side off to improve airflow in hot weather, you can watch the download speed up when we put a fan on it!!

Personally I wouldn't worry about 'only' getting 37Mb, as improving it may be more hassle than it is worth.

At least you can now use both machines at once now without affecting the performance of each other for real time video etc.

As it's on a 40/2 service the PC at 37Mb/s is about as good as most would expect, the laptop should not be able to actually get 42Mb/s so is probably mis-reporting for some reason.

Open Task Manager and select the Networking tab on both PCs.

Then sequentially run the two tests and grab a screen shot after each has completed. Then compare the two ... or host the images and post links to allow others to view and comment.