Boradband Speeds

I'm a regular user of the test meter for check my down load speeds and wondered if any one with more experience would like to comment. I have struggled for years with computers that won't load pages ,taking ages to do simple things and like many others on this site, blamed my ISP [SKY@5mbs].
Recently I was offered cable broadband {Virgin cable@100mbs] and after install went fine I expected a big improvement. I was dismayed to find little or no improvement in my computers ability to do anything any better and began to question the test meter . This is what I found. The router stats give a connection of 106mbs. My desk top computer gives 96mbs on the test meter {dual ]band wireless card]. My laptop gives 18mbs [ "n"band wireless card] or 37mbs [hard wired]. My wife's laptop gives 7mbs although it is only 1 metre from the router.

Also the metre readings seem to be different depending on which browser is used to test it. My laptop gives a reading of 18mbs on internet explorer but gives a reading on the test metre of 34mbs if I test it with Google Chrome. So I conclude that all those phoning their ISP's or reporting on this site need to check they have the latest computer before worrying about super fast broadband as it will totally confuse an older machine that can't handle it, which to novices like me is not widely understood. It should be stressed this test metre tells you the speed your computer is operating at NOT the speed the ISP is supplying to your house.

In reply to a post by MICKY50:

It should be stressed this test metre tells you the speed your computer is operating at NOT the speed the ISP is supplying to your house.

I will totally disagree with that statement.

I am currently using an 8 year old Win XP laptop PC. The PC certainly does NOT act as a bottleneck on broadband connections and will easily cope with network speeds of 700Mbps - was faster than any cable or VDSL service that is currently available in the UK.

You need to ensure that your hardware is correctly configured and for a wired connection to give just 37Mbps suggets you have a local problem.

And by the way, speeds are give in Megabits per second - Mbps and NOT mbs - millibit seconds

I agree to some extent, but given the mess some devices end up in e.g. proxies running people are unaware of, multiple anti-virus and malware tools it can the case that an old PC is slower, perhaps not because of its CPU or network card but just the amount of work it is having to do.

The speed tests we run at http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest provide sharing links to the actual throughput graphs as quoting the numbers alone is only part of the story, the regulars around here I am sure are getting used to spotting common issues from the shape of the graph.

MHC

The quality of the PC and the software it is running CAN have an effect on the speed.

My Mum is using a 10 Year old desktop running XP but it only has 1Gb ram and a slow ( now was fast when brought! ) CPU speed. When running the AV software and any other programs the achieved speed is slow. By turning off everything but the speed tester this is significantly improved, BUT still not what I would expect on a better ( More modern ) PC.

The wireless may also be a hint, what band is the partners Laptop using? may only be a b or G card this will also slow up the check..(Especially if the other devices are on the router even if not being actively used.)

I would think that comparing the 3 machines using a wired connection would be the way to go, therby removing the different wireless cards from the equation. Even then the difference between a 100Mb port and a Gb port on the newer PC will make a difference at the top end of the speed.

This should give a better indictaion of the speeds each machine is capable of and a much closer relationship between them.

Age of a PC isn't always to blame mine is now old, and i'm still using xp , and has a security av /firewall solution running on it Mine is capable of downloading at the full rate speedtest

Edited by tommy45 (Tue 01-Dec-15 19:07:50)

Are you talking about the thinkbroadband speed tester from the Main Site right-hand menu please, or tbbmeter that gives a real-time graph of what is coming in to the machine, and also has some other facilities?

Tommy

Not age but spec which tends to be age related! ( The Computer not the operator that is ).

RAM, CPU, Wireless card, and how much ( and which) software it is running can make a significant difference.

My PC ain't nothing special only 2gb of ram i have replaced the GPU HDD and PSU since it was built back in 2006 Of course software can have an impact on the performance, as for wireless don't even have and wouldn't use if i did for speed tests always on the wire

Thanks to those that tried to help.