My computer is strangling my broadband!

Recently I have regraded to Pipex Max. I am supposed to be able to get beteween 5.5 and 8 Mbps. I have been checking my speed with various online and freeware speed testers and 10 days after BT were supposed to upgrade it I can still only get between 1.6 and 1.9 Mbps. I have done some checking and if I interrogate my router it says its "data rate" is over 4 Mbps so I presume that somewhere between my router and computer I am losing about half my bandwidth. I have cut out the firewall temporarily and it makes no difference. I have an Origo wireless AWR-8100 router connected to the computer by a usb 1.1 link. I have used other computers connected to the router by wireless and had the same problems.
Any ideas what is throttling my broadband?

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Recently I have regraded to Pipex Max.

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There's one possible answer - throttled to bejesus by your ISP. How long have you been migrated ?

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router connected to the computer by a usb 1.1 link

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There's another possible answer. USB 1.1 has a theoretical maximum of 12Mbps - in reality it saturates way lower - typically maxing out around 5M often lower.

What actual sync speed are you seeing? What is the IP profile as reported by http://speedtester.bt.com ?

Or, you could have a stuck 2Mbps IP profile.
If that's the case, it can be cleared by your ISP (or, rather, your ISP asking BT).

Thanks for replying!
If I interrogate my router via my computer and Internet Explorer its says I am syncing at about 4.2 Mb download with an upload speed around 440Kbps. However using the adlsguide speedtest and Dan Elwells speedtester programme I get download speeds around 1.8 Mbps and uploads about 333Kbps.
It has been 10 days since Pipex told me that BT would be upgrading my line on that day and testing it. They must have done something as previuously I was only on 1Mb. They said there may be periods of instability as they test it to determine te optimum staable speed but I have had no problems in that Departrment.
I get the same speeds if I use a computer that's connected directly by wireless (11b) to the router rather than going through the one thats connected by a USB 1.1 connection.
I was never a heavy user but was hoping to change that with the upgrade!!
I have a problem with BTspeedtest. It either doesnt connect to the website when I try to run the test or I get this error message I have no problems with other sites.
"Unexpected result received when querying the network "

Persevere - you'll get it to run and it'll tell you the IP profile - as mentioned by adebov, it's likely it's stuck.

Well I finally got through to btspeedtest by using the ip address http://217.32.105.42/ rather than the text address. It stops the javascript runnung which seems to be the cause of the trouble!
It says my speed is 1.933 Mbps

Not the speed - the IP profile..... what does it say for IP profile?

The old style tester - which is where the IP that the OP used goes to - doesn't show the IP profile..

That's the old style tester - it only reports your download speed, not your IP Profile, so you'll need the output of the new style tester to really prove anything I'm afraid.

Although the result you had is so close to 2Mb that it's an almost certainty that your BRAS profile is stuck at 2Mb, and you need to request your ISP to have it 'unstuck' with BTW.