Odd Fibre Speed Test result

Hi,

I have had a fibre to the home installation since Tuesday and have been generally very impressed with it. However after testing in on TBB I am a bit confused and concerned.

Any idea whats going on here?

WARNING: Your HTTPx6 speed is low compared to tbbx1. This suggests a PC or software problem.

The speed tester has warned me that my HTTP result is low and I may have a software problem, what is wrong?
Our HTTPx6 test should usually be as fast or faster than the tbbx1 test, because it uses multiple downloads to combat the effects of congestion, but in some cases such as yours and the example shown below, the HTTPx6 result is low.

The causes are sometimes your AV software that is slowing down the throughput while it inspects the traffic to ensure it is not dangerous. On some older computers or ones with limited memory we have seen the extra load of doing six tests slow things down too.

Results:

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

It suggests I have either a "Slow PC" (its a Core i5 desktop with 8Gb of memory) or my "virus software is a problem" which I disabled for the test after the first warning. There was no change.

Tried with Chrome and IE11. I am on Windows 7.

Any ideas?

The speedtester could be congested. Do other speedtests show your speed to be OK?

Yeh, other speed testers say its find but the problem seems to be that TBB says my raw download is great but my HTTP is poor. I am not sure which other testers can give me a HTTP test to check against? If it was congested wouldn't the raw throughput test show the same congestion?

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3593009244

Edited by deleted (Sun 29-Jun-14 12:16:17)

All speedtesters are HTTP.

The difference between the two TBB speedtests is that the 1st is a single thread and the 2nd is 6 simultaneous threads.

Obviously the 2nd increases the load by 6 times which could result in congestion.

So why does TBB state?

"Our HTTPx6 test should usually be as fast or faster than the tbbx1 test, because it uses multiple downloads to combat the effects of congestion, but in some cases such as yours and the example shown below, the HTTPx6 result is low."

No the 6 threads does NOT increase congestion it may increase the load on the PC and/or router due to the increased number of packets and processing for the test.

Because for the vast majority of people including those with faster connections this is the case.

Precise reason why yours is behaving this way I don't know at this time, once we get a better handle on who is being displayed this warning we might be able to figure it out.

Flash version can be an issue for some. Have you monitored your CPU load during the test and also tried our alternate tester at http://labs.thinkbroadband.com/ispa that does not use flash.

Well as I mentioned the PC is a fairly modern Core i5-3.6Hgz machine, with 8Gb memory with Windows 7 x64 and gigabit LAN connection to a Netgear WNDR3700v4 connected to the fibre modem.

So I am still confused why my setup would struggle with those tests?

So am I.

What firewall/AV package is running

We know the HTTPx6 can go a lot faster than this too. Will have to remember to do a grab from the database of others who got the same warning during the week and see if there is a common theme.

The CPU never goes above 55% during the entire test.

Flash test:

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

Non-Flash test:

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

Non the wiser...

Edit: Although the non-flash burst HTTPx6 outstripped the Flash burst TBB. The average was also higher and closer the to Flash TBB, but not there.

Edited by deleted (Sun 29-Jun-14 12:32:48)