Radically different speeds on different pcs?

I'm with Virgin on their M200 package, so should in theory have speeds up to 200 mbps (the Virgin website says an average of 213mbps). When running TB speed tests, all run on wireless at the same distance from router,

--- on my 5 year old laptop (intel i5 chip, 6GB memory etc) I consistently get speeds between 140 and up to 180 mbps for downloads - although the laptop tends to be quite slow in everyday use;
--- on my 4 year old pc (i7 chip, 8GB memory) I've been getting an average of about 75mbps,

I've just bought a new pc (AMD Ryzen 5 3600, 16GB memory) and last night got a speed of about 38mbps, but repeating the test a few minutes ago - about 2am not a time of high usage - I got 13.9 mbps download and 2.3 upload !!! It doesn't seem especially slow in general use so I'm surprised and baffled by these results.

Latest speed test result

I had imagined that the new pc would give me lightening fast internet with none of the lag I was experiencing with the others. Obviously I need to test the laptop against this, but does anyone understand what may be happening? And how I can fix it?

Thanks

Frances

Are the different machines showing this variation in actual use?

The most obvious issue may be that different wireless cards are performing differently and may even be using different bands.

It's likely that your new PC is doing a massive amount of Windows 10 updating in the background which is killing your connection both up and down.

By default, not only does Windows 10 not limit the rate at which it downloads updates, but even worse, it shares what you have already downloaded with other users out on the internet using something called Windows Update Delivery Optimisation.

See https://www.itproportal.com/news/how-to-stop-windows... to learn how to disable it.

You should also limit the amount of bandwidth used by background update downloads - see https://www.windowscentral.com/how-limit-windows-upd...

Good luck!

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Are the different machines showing this variation in actual use?

The most obvious issue may be that different wireless cards are performing differently and may even be using different bands.

you should be able to go into the smart hub and see which band each of you devices is connected to,easier than going through windows to do the same

It's difficult to know as hard to compare them doing the same thing. The laptop takes longer to open web pages, and the other two vary. I suppose I am a bit alarmed as I got the new pc on Saturday and if there is something seriously wrong with it I'd like to know sooner than later. I'd imagine it has the latest wireless card - it was one of the few things I couldn't choose to upgrade.

In the last half an hour I've run tests on the new pc via wirelss and connected via a powerline plug
The results are
Date/Time Avg Down Avg Up Provider
01-06-2020 10:18:11 (GMT) 26.4 Mbps 5.8 Mbps Virgin Media powerline
01-06-2020 09:59:01 (GMT) 37.7 Mbps 5.7 Mbps Virgin Media
01-06-2020 01:53:30 (GMT) 14.9 Mbps 4.2 Mbps Virgin Media
01-06-2020 01:51:25 (GMT) 14.3 Mbps 3.1 Mbps Virgin Media
01-06-2020 01:09:23 (GMT) 13.8 Mbps 2.3 Mbps Virgin Media
31-05-2020 06:31:35 (GMT) 33.0 Mbps 6.7 Mbps Virgin Media
31-05-2020 06:29:34 (GMT) 32.4 Mbps 6.1 Mbps Virgin Media
31-05-2020 06:28:32 (GMT) 24.9 Mbps 6.4 Mbps Virgin Media
30-05-2020 16:51:31 (GMT) 74.2 Mbps 19.9 Mbps Virgin Media when first got pc on Sat

My old pc (on wirelss) is currently showing 59.7 / 13.3
But my 5 year old laptop just got 185 / 19.6 - which suggests the problem isn't a general Virgin one, but something to do with the new pc.

Any suggestions about where I might look to check/compare any settings on pcs and laptop? I'll try looking on the router when I find the relevant way to get in...

Thanks, I'll try this when I can find the way in - must have the details somewhere on my pc...

I got the new pc on Saturday so it looks as though all the Windows updates etc have now been done - and the really odd thing is that when they were happening I did the first speed test (shown in the history in another part of this thread) and got 74.2 / 19.9Mbps. So strangely everything has slowed down radically since then.

The only difference between the pcs and the laptop is that I have installed PCloud on pcs to keep client data secure. Also, although I seem to have one drive and google drive on the laptop, one drive seems to have no content saved. Any thoughts about whether this could be the reason for the radical differences?

On the ThinkBroadband home page under "Tools" is an option for test files. Try downloading the 1GB file and check how fast the download is coming (remember if you look in the download manager is will measure in MB/s rather than Mb/s so you have to multiply by 8 to get it to Mb/s). If you get slow download speeds then try starting a couple of additional downloads of the file at the same time and see if the combined speeds increase as that will show what multi-threaded speeds are like.

Once you have your readings you can cancel the downloads rather than waiting for the whole file to download.

In reply to a post by Victoria16:

It's difficult to know as hard to compare them doing the same thing. The laptop takes longer to open web pages, and the other two vary. I suppose I am a bit alarmed as I got the new pc on Saturday and if there is something seriously wrong with it I'd like to know sooner than later. I'd imagine it has the latest wireless card - it was one of the few things I couldn't choose to upgrade.

In the last half an hour I've run tests on the new pc via wirelss and connected via a powerline plug
The results are
Date/Time Avg Down Avg Up Provider
01-06-2020 10:18:11 (GMT) 26.4 Mbps 5.8 Mbps Virgin Media powerline
01-06-2020 09:59:01 (GMT) 37.7 Mbps 5.7 Mbps Virgin Media
01-06-2020 01:53:30 (GMT) 14.9 Mbps 4.2 Mbps Virgin Media
01-06-2020 01:51:25 (GMT) 14.3 Mbps 3.1 Mbps Virgin Media
01-06-2020 01:09:23 (GMT) 13.8 Mbps 2.3 Mbps Virgin Media
31-05-2020 06:31:35 (GMT) 33.0 Mbps 6.7 Mbps Virgin Media
31-05-2020 06:29:34 (GMT) 32.4 Mbps 6.1 Mbps Virgin Media
31-05-2020 06:28:32 (GMT) 24.9 Mbps 6.4 Mbps Virgin Media
30-05-2020 16:51:31 (GMT) 74.2 Mbps 19.9 Mbps Virgin Media when first got pc on Sat

My old pc (on wirelss) is currently showing 59.7 / 13.3
But my 5 year old laptop just got 185 / 19.6 - which suggests the problem isn't a general Virgin one, but something to do with the new pc.

Any suggestions about where I might look to check/compare any settings on pcs and laptop? I'll try looking on the router when I find the relevant way to get in...

you can use device manager to look at the properties of the wireless cards,one you have properties of card click the advanced tab and in the window scroll the options to see which wireless "types" it can connect to,it may need manually setting to the faster protocol or even may need a new driver,I have a pretty new laptop that the inbuilt card wont/cant use the faster later ones without a time consuming replacement so ended up buying a dongle and disabled the inbuilt card

just a thought :-the slower pc isn't using a VPN is it?that would slow you down

In reply to a post by Victoria16:

Thanks, I'll try this when I can find the way in - must have the details somewhere on my pc...

login for virgin hub is :-http://192.168.0.1
you will need your password though unless it is still the virgin default

Before you do anything else, rule out the other bits of networking kit.

Plug both PCs direct into the Virgin router and test.

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

Before you do anything else, rule out the other bits of networking kit.

Plug both PCs direct into the Virgin router and test.

that wouldn't test the wi-fi issue he is having problems with ethernet ports could be performing at peak but wifi cards not

At risk of stating the obvious, have you tried testing your devices via ethernet cable? My old desktop PC is useless over wifi, my wife's new one is fine ... so I got a longer cable as I don't cart the desktop around, does all I need.

I write software for a living, I know how to troubleshoot stuff. Troubleshooting is all about isolating the variables to narrow down what is broken.

By plugging in via Ethernet it removes wifi from the equation. If the new machine still has problems they know the issue isn't the wifi card and is something else. If it doesn't then they know to look more into what is happening with the wifi card.

Keeping just testing with wifi doesn't tell you anything new.

Edited by andynormancx (Wed 03-Jun-20 21:23:06)

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

I write software for a living, I know how to troubleshoot stuff. Troubleshooting is all about isolating the variables to narrow down what is broken.

By plugging in via Ethernet it removes wifi from the equation. If the new machine still has problems they know the issue isn't the wifi card and is something else. If it doesn't then they know to look more into what is happening with the wifi card.

Keeping just testing with wifi doesn't tell you anything new.

Maybe you are and maybe you do ,there is no way of checking what anybody claims to be or do on the net but to "trouble shoot" wouldn't you first establish what was the specification of the item you were trouble shooting?
From basically the year dot ethernet ports will handle well over the speed a 200mb connection will provide without any/much throttling, the wifi cards however over a comparably short time scale vary considerably in the wi-fi protocols they can handle,the steps I have suggested are to establish if there is something that needs "troubleshooting" or is n0rmal for the spec of the machine:-after all if you lived in Germany and used the autobahn I doubt you would troubleshoot a ford fiesta because a McLaren past you going a lot faster?:-the specifications are different!

In reply to a post by steve195527:

From basically the year dot ethernet ports will handle well over the speed a 200mb connection will provide without any/much throttling,

10 base-T?

I guess it depends how far back said person thinks they know IT. I started with 10-Base2 myself, but work with people whom used 4 Mbps Token Ring.

38mbps suggests you only have a 1x1 WiFi "n" card working on just 20mhz of 2.4ghz. This is the effective maximum. If you check your connection speed in the "network and sharing centre" I imagine you are only connected at around 72-75mbps.

WiFi "n" can do 150mbps @ 40mhz, or 75mbps @ 20mhz. As WiFi is half duplex you will only ever get half this rate. Thus half of 75mbps is 37.5 which is what you are seeing.

I agree with Andy that the logical first check is wired. This will show if the issue is with WiFi. Then you can do the checks from there.

I have a really poor 1x1 'n' USB dongle on my Lenovo PC. It also tops out at 37ish. However, at some points it drops to early 20's.

I also started on 10-base2, but I suggested 10-baseT as it would be cables and sockets he'd recognise!

Post deleted by steve195527

Post deleted by steve195527

Edited by steve195527 (Fri 05-Jun-20 00:01:00)

In reply to a post by jelv:

I also started on 10-base2, but I suggested 10-baseT as it would be cables and sockets he'd recognise!

It doesn't matter how far back you go,to first consider a fault you have to establish whether any equipment is working within its design limitations,which normally you(well I) would do by checking what its specs are,you don't assume because something isn't performing as you would like that any fault exists

The statement you made (From basically the year dot ethernet ports will handle well over the speed a 200mb connection will provide) was wrong. There were a lot of different implementations of the physical layer (and a significant time) before we got to 100 base-T - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_physical_laye...

You might be smart and know all the different wifi standards and all the affecting factors such as number of antenna to work out the theoretical top speed, but for the average punter most of us would start by recommending very quick simple steps such as trying a wired connection as was done here.

Edited by jelv (Fri 05-Jun-20 14:48:10)

Thanks to everyone for the helpful suggestions - and I'm sorry this theme has proved so controversial!

Following recommendations I logged into my Virgin hub and discovered that my laptop's dramatically faster speed was owing to the Intel network adapter which updated last August so that it now runs mainly on 5GHz.
The older and new pcs both have 'n' cards it seems, although it is odd that the new pc performs at half the speed of the older one with a similar card.

When the long enough ethernet cable arrived, my new pc runs at around 210mbps wired

I ordered /borrowed 3 dual band wifi dongles and renamed the 5GHz channel so I could see when it was connected. Bizarrely the Foktech AC600 (quick cheap option from Amazon to see if it would improve anything - about to be returned) made things worse on my older pc - it slowed things to an unbelievable 1mbps download or less as you can see from the results on 4th June below - however when unplugged the internal network card shot back up to 61Mbps. A Trendnet TEW-805UB dongle shows that I can get speeds closer to 200Mbps if connected to 5GHz.

06-06-2020 10:41:09 (GMT) 45.6 Mbps 15.6 Mbps Virgin Media
05-06-2020 14:58:39 (GMT) 184.9 Mbps 21.4 Mbps Virgin Media
05-06-2020 14:56:45 (GMT) 172.6 Mbps 21.2 Mbps Virgin Media
04-06-2020 15:24:16 (GMT) 9.7 Mbps 1.3 Mbps Virgin Media
04-06-2020 15:22:15 (GMT) 1.6 Mbps 1.0 Mbps Virgin Media
04-06-2020 15:09:47 (GMT) 61.1 Mbps 7.6 Mbps Virgin Media
04-06-2020 15:07:48 (GMT) 14.3 Mbps 3.7 Mbps Virgin Media
04-06-2020 14:59:58 (GMT) 1.5 Mbps 1.1 Mbps Virgin Media
04-06-2020 14:53:18 (GMT) 0.6 Mbps 1.0 Mbps Virgin Media

But what I have discovered is that the 5GHz connection drops out after just a few minutes on all of the devices that connect to it. Do you think this is to do with the network adaptors or a problem with the Virgin hub? Or something to do with Virgin limiting usage - redirecting it to the Tivo box?

Latency also seems to be incredibly high all the time - always an F on the speed test analysis. Anything I can do to reduce this and if so is it likely to improve things?

And finally, does anyone have thoughts / recommendations about whether I should be replacing internal network adaptors or buying specific plug-in devices for the 2pcs and 1 additional laptop that seem to be affected.

Thanks again.

Frances

An F on the speed test does not mean latency is high, it is a measure of buffer bloat, i.e. how much latency is affected when the download and upload are otherwise saturated

Latency in this test was high http://tbb.st/1591041857117936155
http://tbb.st/1591286614314261955 had a resonable latency

Edited by MrSaffron (Sat 06-Jun-20 12:42:06)

In reply to a post by Victoria16:

Thanks to everyone for the helpful suggestions - and I'm sorry this theme has proved so controversial!

Following recommendations I logged into my Virgin hub and discovered that my laptop's dramatically faster speed was owing to the Intel network adapter which updated last August so that it now runs mainly on 5GHz.
The older and new pcs both have 'n' cards it seems, although it is odd that the new pc performs at half the speed of the older one with a similar card.

When the long enough ethernet cable arrived, my new pc runs at around 210mbps wired

I ordered /borrowed 3 dual band wifi dongles and renamed the 5GHz channel so I could see when it was connected. Bizarrely the Foktech AC600 (quick cheap option from Amazon to see if it would improve anything - about to be returned) made things worse on my older pc - it slowed things to an unbelievable 1mbps download or less as you can see from the results on 4th June below - however when unplugged the internal network card shot back up to 61Mbps. A Trendnet TEW-805UB dongle shows that I can get speeds closer to 200Mbps if connected to 5GHz.

06-06-2020 10:41:09 (GMT) 45.6 Mbps 15.6 Mbps Virgin Media
05-06-2020 14:58:39 (GMT) 184.9 Mbps 21.4 Mbps Virgin Media
05-06-2020 14:56:45 (GMT) 172.6 Mbps 21.2 Mbps Virgin Media
04-06-2020 15:24:16 (GMT) 9.7 Mbps 1.3 Mbps Virgin Media
04-06-2020 15:22:15 (GMT) 1.6 Mbps 1.0 Mbps Virgin Media
04-06-2020 15:09:47 (GMT) 61.1 Mbps 7.6 Mbps Virgin Media
04-06-2020 15:07:48 (GMT) 14.3 Mbps 3.7 Mbps Virgin Media
04-06-2020 14:59:58 (GMT) 1.5 Mbps 1.1 Mbps Virgin Media
04-06-2020 14:53:18 (GMT) 0.6 Mbps 1.0 Mbps Virgin Media

But what I have discovered is that the 5GHz connection drops out after just a few minutes on all of the devices that connect to it. Do you think this is to do with the network adaptors or a problem with the Virgin hub? Or something to do with Virgin limiting usage - redirecting it to the Tivo box?

Latency also seems to be incredibly high all the time - always an F on the speed test analysis. Anything I can do to reduce this and if so is it likely to improve things?

And finally, does anyone have thoughts / recommendations about whether I should be replacing internal network adaptors or buying specific plug-in devices for the 2pcs and 1 additional laptop that seem to be affected.

Thanks again.

Frances

The virgin hub by default selects the channels used for wifif automatically and is "supposed" to select the ones for both bands that offer the best performance with least interference from other equipment in your area (neighbours wifi etc) sometimes this doesn't work as it should and can cause issues, in such cases it may be beneficial selecting the channels manually ,Its pretty straightforward to do/try one you have logged on to the hub and reverse if no benefit is gained or things go worse
As an aside some security software suites now come with a vpn as standard for use when conected to wifi,see the tv ad for norton 360 for example,if you have one of these on your laptop/laptops and the vpn is active,some are by default and need turning off if you don't want it active,that can dramatically slow your connection,if you want to use it then it is something you have to live with,I hope this advice isn't contrary to what others think and upsets them!

Edited by steve195527 (Sun 07-Jun-20 10:15:09)

If you have Windows then there is a free app in the MS Store that shows you channels in use, and can help find a free one:
https://www.microsoft.com/store/productId/9NBLGGH33N0N

(Mac users can find a paid app in the Apple store, and there are numerous apps for Android in the Play Store)

Edited by jchamier (Sun 07-Jun-20 10:24:24)

Best to check the blindingly obvious first.

Yes, I've now turned the automatic channel selection off and changed to different channels which seems to have helped - thanks. I've also discovered that the usb wifi adaptor works much more reliably to retain the 5GHz connection in a different port, so things are now functioning much more successfully and the last test gave about 213Mbps which seems a definite improvement.

In reply to a post by Victoria16:

Yes, I've now turned the automatic channel selection off and changed to different channels which seems to have helped - thanks. I've also discovered that the usb wifi adaptor works much more reliably to retain the 5GHz connection in a different port, so things are now functioning much more successfully and the last test gave about 213Mbps which seems a definite improvement.

getting that over wifi a def improvement,glad things are better for you