Spikes!

Hello, Had an Infinity problem since last May, which BT have only just managed to address - in part.
In excess of 60 phone calls, emails and texts only provided me with:
1) We are doing maintenance work
2) We have found the problem - it is your HH3 , and we are sending you a replacement
3) We have found the problem - it is between your house and the street cabinet.
4) There is something wrong with your internal wiring.
5) Your PC is broken
6) You have a wireless fault (don't use wireless, well very, very infrequently)
It got to the point when I said I'm leaving, after which a tech investigation (?) guy - Paul called me: he assured me that as my IP had remained constant (@66meg) for the previous 28 days, then the fault is likely with your PC: this is where the spike reference comes into play.
I had been getting in excess of 63meg lots of the time, and down to 0.89 meg at other times.
No connection with time of day at all.
He advised me to check my speeds in "safe-mode with networking", and keep a note of my figures: they are ALWAYS in excess of 60 meg. I then restart in normal mode, and for quite a while the figures are very similar - but not consistent.
He said "spikes on the PC": what that means I am not too sure. I can identify with spikes on the PSU, but I've checked those - all fine - but have no idea where else he might be referring to. Fact of the matter is that "anytime" I check my speed in safe-mode, it is fine. Normal mode is the same as it has been for the last 10 months.
I ask if anyone has any thoughts about where to look or what to do.
The connection is perfectly usable, inasmuch as it is often, say 20+ meg, but that's not what I'm paying for. All suggestions gratefully received!
Cheers, Les.

Dell Optiplex 760
3gb Core Duo
4gb DDR2
80gb HDD (30+ to spare)
Win7 Ultimate (latest updates)
corded or cordless mouse & keyboard

Unusable in what way?

Throughput speeds? Latency?
What examples of speed tests do you have e.g. the graphs from http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html

If as you suggest that in Safe mode (with networking I presume) the connection is fine, then it does tend to suggest the PC is the issue.

Hi Andrew, Thanks for your reply. The connection is always "usable" not "unusable"
The schirmfoto link shows the latest test - via TBB - as the BT one's down! http://schirmfoto.de/52b8c72663

I thought he (BT Paul) may have been referring to PSU voltage fluctuations, but no, as I tested each voltage (open circuit of course). Any thoughts on what it might be? Perhaps a rogue program or something like? I'm at a loss. The PC is the same as it was since new (2009) programs have come and gone - regular a/v and spyware checks show nothing.

As I said, without fail, the readings are perfect in safe mode: what could it be, I wonder, that safe-mode is perhaps isolating?
Thanks gain, Les

Httpx6 is behaving odd

What av firewall software are you running?

And what is cpu utilisation like?

Hi Andrew, Thanks again.
I'm running Microsoft Security Essentials, but I only use the firewall that comes with the BT equipment ie HH3 & modem: I don't have Windows Firewall turned on at all - never have.


http://schirmfoto.de/eec81c4930
http://schirmfoto.de/eaf7534890

I assume your reference to CPU usage/utilisation relates to the figures I see in Windows task Manager?
Typically, using a program or two, the CPU usage would be about 10/30%
and when I do the BT speedtest it shows about 70/80% usage - as I type now it shows 1%.


If I've not understood exactly what you needed, perhaps you could let me know what you want to see?
Cheers, Les

Before finishing this email, I ran the BT wholesale test at the same time: CPU usage whilst downloading was 89% & 10% whilst uploading.

When running our speedtest what does the CPU behave like?

44% usage whilst downloading & 2/3% whilst uploading.

what results do you get if you try a different browser?
(looks like you are using firefox, so can you try in ie9)

And what sort of graphs did it produce, you can copy/paste the results link the test gives. There is no personal information on the page.

That seems like very high utilisation of the CPU, as I barely scratch 15% here with a Core 2 Duo processor around Centrino chipset (2.7GB of memory form 4GB in use)

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

Hi Andrew, Is this what you want? It's from a test done a minute or two ago. Cheers, Les.

Okay based on what you've said then yes I think there is some problem with your PC's performance possibly.

Same sort of CPU as what I have but I see a lot lower CPU usage. The HTTP test by using six threads does make the PC work harder, but a 3GHz processor should still manage to handle this, I've seen faster on a lot older and slower machines.

http://schirmfoto.de/ba3d3f4380
http://schirmfoto.de/9fc1e88968
http://schirmfoto.de/fa0ba66346

These are ones taken shortly after the last TBB one (50+meg) that I sent you earlier.
Cheers, Les.

If this the PC?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-OptiPlex-760-DT-Keyboar...

What seems odd to me, but may be wrong is that you are only showing a single core in Windows Task Manager for performance, I would expect two for your PC. Have you actually checked what is installed i.e. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-vista/fin...

Yes, Andrew, that is the PC - but with Win7 ultimate, 4gb DDR2 . The single graph was because I'd temporarily altered the view: there are two cores displayed normally.
What's installed? The link doesn't take me anywhere.
Are you wanting to know which programs are installed?
Cheers, Les

You may have to click on the graph and enable Show logical processors, I just had to do that on my Win 8 Pro task manager which defaults to overall CPU use with the same processor.

Ta, never seen it show anything but less than the cores I've got.

Open System by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, and then clicking System.

Under System, you can view the processor type and speed, as well as the number of processors installed, if your computer uses multiple processors.

Was just wanting to see if the operating systems agrees with what you think the CPU actually is.

I would be looking at the processes running in memory and doing other PC benchmarking at this point to make sure the PC is performing as expected.

http://schirmfoto.de/e8ab6a2131

This shows nearly 100% usage, Andrew.

http://schirmfoto.de/6033922505
http://schirmfoto.de/e69aaec712

I think, Andrew, that these snaps show the spec of my PC. Cheers, Les.

Hi, Thanks for the reply. Yes, I do use Firefox pretty much all the time. I have tried Opera & IE7 - but to be truthful, I don't want to use IE & Opera was just for elimination purposes! Cheers, Les.

http://schirmfoto.de/6033922505
http://schirmfoto.de/e69aaec712

They do, and they all look fine.

Next step would be to at the relative CPU usage in Task Manager of processes and see if something unexpected is using a lot of CPU time when doing both speedtests and normal downloads

I have seen very similar problems testing on my Dell Vostro 1700 laptop (Core 2 Duo, 2.2Ghz, Windows 7 Professional 32 bit), just tested (remotely using Logmein so results will be a little skewed) and CPU hits 100% during the HTTPx6 test - that appears to be what's limiting my throughput on this particular test.
Normally use Pale Moon browser, TBB x1 download gives about 53Mbps (doesn't quite max the processor), HTTP x6 gives a result in the twenties (last test Avg 24Mbps, burst 28Mbps), tried with IE9, this improved the HTTP x6 test to about 34Mbps Avg and 36Mbps burst while maxing out both cores on my CPU.
Disabling (Avast free) antivirus and (Windows) firewall makes little noticable difference.
When I look at running processes, the browser is the thing using greatest amount of the CPU (though nothing like the 100% reported in total usage), Flash player shows too but with quite low % displayed.
@MrSaffron, all was fine until I ran these speedtests, I recon you owe me a new (faster) laptop

[edit], I have Vista on the same machine, I'll need to try that for comparison (can't reboot into a different OS remotely though so that'll have to wait until later).

Edited by deleted (Wed 20-Mar-13 12:39:47)