Speed Oddity

Some months ago I upgraded my router from the awful TT one to a Netgear Nighthawk X4S D7800.

I immediately saw a massive improvement in stability, whereas before, the connection was dropping 5+ times a day, it seems monthly now.

Additionally, my speeds went from around 20Mbs to 30Mbs with a stable connection.

I am now lucky if it hits 18Mbs.

Could this be throttling from TT? I would not have thought it would be contention since I would still expect to connect at the higher speed just not reach them.

Talktalk don't throttle in any way.

Posting detailed stats from the modem would likely give the answer, or a good indication.

Can you run this test and post the results - https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/15298377153...

System Up Time 125:00:26:44
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN Link up 4294967295 4294967295 0 397 397 04:13:27:52
LAN 1 1000M/Full 4294967295 4294967295 0 397 397 02:02:38:14
LAN 2 100M/Full 16:15:44
LAN 3 1000M/Full 01:00:26:24
LAN 4 10M/Full 02:02:38:14
WLAN b/g/n 800M 295119073 286352823 0 18 125 02:02:37:53
WLAN a/n/ac 1733M 442792792 239359306 0 11 36 02:02:37:51

DSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 18.00 Mbps 5.58 Mbps
Line Attenuation 27.90 dB 31.50 dB
Noise Margin 9.30 dB 5.70 dB

Are you always getting a lag delay before the second download test starts?

The single thread test is less affected by this, so there may be a DNS lookup issue. Or router is buffering massively before throwing the data at the PC, hence the spike and subsequent tail off towards the 12-13 Mbps region

Give the new router a restart and see if things improve.

Rebooted and still getting broadly the same:

System Up Time 00:06:24
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN Link up 57761 277137 0 19138 721843 00:05:36
LAN 1 1000M/Full 281796 58367 0 745012 19914 00:05:46
LAN 2 100M/Full 00:05:46
LAN 3 1000M/Full 00:05:46
LAN 4 10M/Full 00:05:46
WLAN b/g/n 800M 3581 1592 0 464 1689 00:05:05
WLAN a/n/ac 1733M 9664 5816 0 9940 5439 00:05:03

DSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 18.00 Mbps 5.42 Mbps
Line Attenuation 27.90 dB 31.70 dB
Noise Margin 9.50 dB 6.00 dB

Some months ago I upgraded my router from the awful TT one to a Netgear Nighthawk X4S D7800.

I used to have the HG633 super router and as i was having speed issues i asked if i could try the new D-link router on the support forum they sent me one a few days later and i found the D-Link much better it may be worth asking.

.

The downstream SNR is higher than the default 6db, this is costing you sync speed.

More importantly, why has DLM capped it down ? It�s seen instability somehow.

The irony is, having installed the latest firmware and rebooted, I am no longer able to attain anything above 1.6MBs

Is that the new router they have brought out?

In reply to a post by NaNook:

Is that the new router they have brought out?

I am not sure if it is the latest but this is the one they started to send to customers when they complained about the poor performance of the HG633.

The 'new' router is a Sagemcom FAST5364, which is their latest 'best ever'. I had one sent last week because I took advantage of a fibre upgrade, but as I don't have experience of fibre with the HG633 I can't say if it's better.

The HG633 worked well for me on ADSL. 134 days of uptime after updating to v2.00 firmware with no resets or issues before I swapped it for the new one. Never got the D-Link router.

However, that's got nothing to do with answering your question but I hope you get a successful resolution.

As you've seen similar results with two different routers, the line stats clearly show your issue is the phone line itself, not throttling. Either a poor quality line or very long line between your house and the nearest street cabinet. Where and how do you have your router connected to the phone line - e.g. master socket, extension, which kind of microfilter, etc? And what type of master socket do you have? I have seen microfilter and in particular filter faceplates make a huge difference with fibre.

The line is around 2 miles long.

The oddity is when I connected the Netgear, the speed and stability shot up, then slowly decreased back to lower than I had with the TT router.

Router connected directly to one of those new master sockets that do not require filter, with all extension wiring disconnected.

Is your connection speed always listed as 18.00Mb even after a modem restart?

The high noise margin and rounded downstream figure suggests DLM has banded/capped your sync speed.
If that's the case it will never sync above 18Mb.

If talktalk are part of the DLM reset trial you could ask for 1.
If not it needs an OpenReach engineer to reset the DLM, or potentially months of waiting and hoping it removes itself (unlikely).