In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

By default Windows 10 limits your bandwidth by 80%! There's a setting that needs to be changed every time on a new fresh Windows 10/11 installation.

There are 2 options. If you've got Pro version or higher go to Start-->Run-->gpedit.msc This opens the Group Policy Editor.
Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Network > QoS Packet Scheduler. Press Enabled and in the Bandwidth limit type in 0 and hit apply and restart your PC.

Now your internet speed will not be restricted to the old 80%!

If you have only Home edition. Then you can manually add this through the registry editor by going to Start-->Run-->regedit. Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Psched
You may have to create a folder separately called Psched and create a DWORD 32-bit Value NonBestEffortLimit and enter 0

I had my doubts about that statement as I sync at 79999 on W10 so my max achievable download would be about 64MBps if the 80% cap is actually effective whereas my normal speed testing gives 70+ after all of the IPv6 overheads (and nearer 75 on IPv4). Putting NonBestEffortLimit into my search engine gave me lots of entries repeating the advice and one (https://www.howtogeek.com/730147/windows-10-myth-don...) which debunks the theory and explains why including quotes from as far back as 2006 from Microsoft.

Obviously How-To-Geek have a vested interest in marking down all of the other web-sites giving contrary advice. They make the point that the internet is an echo chamber and posts with dubious information can get taken up and repeated many times without any of those repeating the posting doing any research to back up their statements.

You pays your money and you takes your choice.

Edited by GonePostal (Thu 28-Dec-23 23:50:55)

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

By default Windows 10 limits your bandwidth by 80%!

Not actually true, or the corporate systems I design and build would be incredibly slow. I've built Windows and Linux based systems where using the 100 or 1000 Mbps of a corporate network is important, and all have been able to max out the capacity of the Network Card, visible from the managed switch.

Edited by jchamier (Thu 28-Dec-23 22:41:33)

Did you even read the links you shared?

“It's important to note that the 20% reserved bandwidth isn't permanently unavailable for non-priority tasks. When no high-priority tasks are ongoing, this 20% chunk of your bandwidth remains available for all apps on your PC.”

So windows uses your network when it needs it. That seems pretty logical.

Actually, indeed this 20% gets reserved only while Microsoft is downloading an update.

For example if you are downloading a large Windows update like a feature patch then 80% of the bandwidth is prioritised for Windows update and store. If you are then downloading something else then your download speed is reduced to 20%. Even browsing the web during this process will become significantly slower.

In the video Chris Titus shows how the network is zig-zagging up and down and not being consistent.
Unfortunately, in Windows 10 there's a lot of bandwidth hungry data going on. For example when you freshly install Windows 10 you'll get Candy Crush Saga automatically downloaded and installed from the Store and various other apps and games that most of us do not need. When you try to uninstall them then they automatically install once again in the background either few hours later or on the next reboot.

If you do a speed test while all of this is happening without you realising what's going on in the background you'll find that you are getting reduced speed test results simply due to this.

Unlike Windows 7 and 8.1 where you could easily disable Windows update from Control Panel, Windows 10 is much more notorious. You have to use group policy editor, regedit or Windows Update Blocker tool. It also loads with Microsoft Store and Telemetry. Everything needs to be tweaked to make sure nothing is being used up.

Almost every single day there is a Windows update happening whether a security update, malicious software removal update, Windows Defender Definition Update, Nvidia drivers, etc. There are also task schedules that happen in the background that scan for updates.

If everything is fine and bandwidth isn't used then your speed tests will be accurate. That's why for the benefit of the doubt it is important to keep an eye on all of this and make changes. Otherwise we'd be quick to blame ISP/router or computer hardware not knowing it is Windows responsible for the slow down.

The OP hasn't yet mentioned if he is experiencing this only with his laptop or whether his other devices are showing the same results. If speeds are slow on his mobile other computers, TV, etc then we can rule out Windows settings.

It doesn't hurt to make these changes, you can always revert them back to how they were. If you want to update Windows/Store apps or install drivers you can then turn Windows update back on.

The advert games don’t reinstall on 10 Pro or the two Home machines I’ve used.

The bandwidth reservation does NOT work in the way you describe.

Sorry but that video is garbage. The "proof" of the issue is dips in throughput on an SMB transfer to a HDD peaking at 90% utilisation with no mention of the system that the files are being shared from. Then he makes some settings changes and finishes by saying (paraphrased) "I'm not going to reboot to prove that what I just told you is accurate, trust me". The barest minimum evidence provided to say that the Windows setting (that he does not understand) is negatively impacting transfer speeds would be 10 runs in each direction on iperf, TCP and UDP, before and after changing the setting.

Windows out of the box on a PC will have no issues maxing out a speedtest if your wired network is up to the job. A 500Mbps service speed testing at a maximum of 320Mbps is not due to a Windows feature that needs tweaking.

That's because he already made those setting changes so he doesn't need to reboot as it will not make any difference to what he is demonstrating. Alternatively you could do a gpupdate /force from command prompt and it will make the changes.

From the article that I've read...

Contrary to how many on the internet claim that reducing this limit to 0% improves internet speed, your PC can always use 100% of the bandwidth, unless a high-priority task needs some of that bandwidth. If a high-priority task does need bandwidth, it's in your best interest to allow those tasks to use the bandwidth and ensure your computer's security and overall health.

This means that as long as there are no high-priority tasks from Microsoft using bandwidth, then the full download speed will be used for the rest of your tasks.

But if there is something being used then that will hinder download speeds. It's common sense. I know most people don't perform speed tests while downloading because naturally that will drop the speed test scores. If you are uploading a large file or someone else is uploading a large file on the same network from another device and you were to do a speed test then you will get lower upload speed until that uploading is completed!

But there are occasions when things happen in the background without one realising.
The case with the Store apps is a typical one where Microsoft installs apps without you realising. Then when you click on the Start menu you see like magic, Candy Crush, Spotify, Netflix, etc got installed and are appearing in your Start Menu tiles. You won't know this until you check.

Now, unless Microsoft have changed something in the later versions of Windows 10/11 we still have to follow this guide. Unless you've got bare bone Windows 10/11 LTSC/LTSB that doesn't have Store app. https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/6664-turn-off-au...
Microsoft will also automatically update your existing store apps in the background by default. This setting also needs disabling by setting the App updates to Off and the Live Tiles to Off as well.

In general Chris Titus videos are legit. I have managed to optimize my PC by following his Windows 10 Lite de-bloater script on various tweaks like Disabling Tracking Services and Data Collection, store apps, unimportant services, etc and dropped RAM usage and made my PC boot faster and increase game fps.
If you google Windows 10 Lite script the first result comes with ChrisTitusTech / win10script.

The OP who claims to be on the 500Mbps package claims to have only got 320Mbps in one of his google speed tests. While the rest of his tests are showing 94Mbps max with one of his speed test as low as 19.3Mbps! Clearly something is wrong somewhere. Something is wrong either with Windows, hardware, router, ONT or the cables themselves. His upload speeds aren't impacted so it is natural to think that Windows is more likely to use download for the updates.

He hasn't shown whether he is experiencing this with his other devices or tried any of the tweaks yet to confirm if there are any improvements or not.

Edited by BLaZiNgSPEED (Sat 30-Dec-23 00:17:55)

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Alternatively you could do a gpupdate /force from command prompt and it will make the changes.

If you're not connected to an on-premises AD domain controller that command does nothing. You can "refresh policy" in the UI if you click in the right place.

However unless you are still on dialup or 1 Mbps ADSL, the impact of these changes will not be measurable, even if your machine is downloading a large windows update.

I think there are far to many people currently on the internet pretending to be experts and giving bad advice on a range of topics, unless you have worked in an industry and have years of knowledge and know what your talking about its best to stick to giving advice on what you do as a day job.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

However unless you are still on dialup or 1 Mbps ADSL, the impact of these changes will not be measurable, even if your machine is downloading a large windows update.

And thats the whole point of the 20% policy, to download in the background....