New 50mb install - fluctuating speeds [Archive]

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buckleb

11-10-2009, 00:12

Hi all,

I had my broadband upgraded from 20mb to 50mb yesterday (Friday) and it hasn't really performed well at all. My 20mb was always rock solid (I read that a lot) but the 50mb fluctuates between 0 and 35mb with the occasional spike to 48mb or so. It also stalls on some downloads.

I spent a fair amount of time yesterday pinging the bbc, doing traceroutes and downloading files for the newsgroup support team, but by the time I'd finished that I had some sort of stabilty and so didn't see the point in continuing.

Sadly it didn't last and I've had wildly fluctuating speeds again today.

I've seen people have posted their levels, and so here are mine. Do they look OK? I have an attenuator (FAT-3db) on the back of my modem that was attached to my old one too.

Download Failed (1)

http://www.deebar.org/pics/up.jpg

Thanks in advance.

I forgot to mention that I can't complete the speedtest at http://www.vmspeed.com/ as it stalls before the download part finishes.

Pontiac

11-10-2009, 14:39

I had my 20mb upgrade to 50mb yesterday and I'm getting fluctuations too, although I believe it may be due to network congestion what with it being the weekend. In usenet right now it's mostly at the full 6200 k/s however it drops around 5000 then sometimes to as low as 1000 (5mb) then slowly rises again.

This morning about 12.30 it was constant full speed this is why I assume my problem is just network congestion, perhaps that's partly responsible for yours. I too had a rock solid 20mb most of the time.

Here are my power levels, I assume these are okay for those in the know?

http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/3199/cableup.png

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/7664/cabledown.png

webcrawler2050

11-10-2009, 14:59

Power levels are within operational parameters.

How are you connected?

buckleb

11-10-2009, 16:03

Power levels are within operational parameters.

How are you connected?

Me? I'm connecting through the Netgear WNR2000 at the moment, but I've also tried a direct-to-modem connection.

This is with XP SP3 and Windows 7. The XP machine seems to be better than the Windows 7 one, but it still fluctuates quite a lot with regular complete stalls.

The installing engineer said the had problems with Windows 7, but couldn't tell me what they were. That said, I have seen full speed out of the Windows 7 system... just not for very long.

webcrawler2050

11-10-2009, 16:42

Me? I'm connecting through the Netgear WNR2000 at the moment, but I've also tried a direct-to-modem connection.

This is with XP SP3 and Windows 7. The XP machine seems to be better than the Windows 7 one, but it still fluctuates quite a lot with regular complete stalls.

The installing engineer said the had problems with Windows 7, but couldn't tell me what they were. That said, I have seen full speed out of the Windows 7 system... just not for very long.

Well your power levels are fine - is it any specific time of the day?

Whats the speed like on Ethernet through the Netgear?

Are you experiencing any packet loss?

buckleb

11-10-2009, 17:35

Thanks for the power info, that's one less thing to wonder about.

There doesn't seem to be any pattern to the problem, as it happens pretty much all the time. One minute it will run at full speed, and the next it will stall completely or drop to modem speeds.

The speeds through the Router are fine when I use internal file transfer (11MB/sec on 100mb network) and I do see the headline speed (briefly) when testing the download from external sources.

Letting ping run for a while shows no packet loss, but I'm unsure if that is the correct way of testing for packet loss.

I've just run some more tests on the vm speedtest site (www.vmspeed.com) and while things seem to have improved greatly on the XP system (results below) the Windows 7 system stalls and won't complete. I guess there is still that undefined problem.

Download Speed: 49097 kbps (6137.1 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 1480 kbps (185 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 9 ms
11 October 2009 17:14:11

---------- Post added at 17:35 ---------- Previous post was at 17:19 ----------

The Windows 7 system is now running at almost full speed.

I also don't see the 'stalling' that has been apparent for a while (it's like the download freezes for a second, then continues at a lower speed).

Does the equipment on the other end go through a learning phase, similar to the ADSL kit?

I think I'm going to have to just monitor this for a while, over a longer period, to see if there is a pattern that can't be seen after such a short amount of usage.

Thanks for the help.

Peter_

11-10-2009, 18:59

Hi all,

I had my broadband upgraded from 20mb to 50mb yesterday (Friday) and it hasn't really performed well at all. My 20mb was always rock solid (I read that a lot) but the 50mb fluctuates between 0 and 35mb with the occasional spike to 48mb or so. It also stalls on some downloads.

I spent a fair amount of time yesterday pinging the bbc, doing traceroutes and downloading files for the newsgroup support team, but by the time I'd finished that I had some sort of stabilty and so didn't see the point in continuing.

Sadly it didn't last and I've had wildly fluctuating speeds again today.

I've seen people have posted their levels, and so here are mine. Do they look OK? I have an attenuator (FAT-3db) on the back of my modem that was attached to my old one too.

http://www.deebar.org/pics/down.jpg

Thanks in advance.

I forgot to mention that I can't complete the speedtest at http://www.vmspeed.com/ as it stalls before the download part finishes.
Your Downstream power levels are way to high at 11+ and you need an engineer to adjust them

Call the 50Mb support tomorrow morning after 0800 on 0800 052 0431 so they can get an engineer booked as soon as possible.

jcm193

11-10-2009, 19:12

I had a visit from a senior tech a few weeks ago with reference to some ongoing issues with my 50 meg connection,he happened to mention about this very issue and stated that virginmedia where fully aware of it and it was a problem with certain equipment based at the headend`s.He also said that this problem had been reolved in Scotland and now they have a constant speed unlike many of use.

buckleb

11-10-2009, 19:24

Ignitionnet

11-10-2009, 19:52

Power levels are within operational parameters.

No they aren't, 11 is too high and risks service degredation. The sticky regarding power levels is not accurate for 50Mbps customers due to differences in how their modems tune channels, they have a wideband 100MHz tuner and digitally sample channels from that 100MHz making them more sensitive to power levels.

Pontiac

11-10-2009, 20:45

What about my power levels fellas?

Peter_

11-10-2009, 20:54

What about my power levels fellas?
Fine as webcrawler said above, but if you feel you have an issue call tomorrow after 0800 on 0800 052 0431

Pontiac

11-10-2009, 22:23

Fine as webcrawler said above, but if you feel you have an issue call tomorrow after 0800 on 0800 052 0431

Do you think I have an issue? Is network congestion on weekends at peak times the norm on the 50mb connection?

Peter_

12-10-2009, 07:24

Do you think I have an issue? Is network congestion on weekends at peak times the norm on the 50mb connection?
I cannot really say via a forum as diagnostics need to be run and that is only possible if you call the Support number.

buckleb

12-10-2009, 11:06

Thanks, will do.

I have someone coming out next Monday, or sooner if there's a cancellation.

Just as well really, as I'm unable to download anything without 30-second stalls or sub 300KB/sec speeds :shocked:

http://www.deebar.org/pics/stall.jpg

buckleb

25-10-2009, 22:46

Your Downstream power levels are way to high at 11+ and you need an engineer to adjust them

Call the 50Mb support tomorrow morning after 0800 on 0800 052 0431 so they can get an engineer booked as soon as possible.

The tech came out last week and added an attenuator which brought power levels down to around 2.5dBmV. It seems to have made the connection more stable, but I still get the fluctuating speeds... just not as often.

He said that he was going to escalate the fluctuation issue to 'Networks', as he suspected it was a known problem.

Things are a lot better now though, so thanks again for the info.

Merc

26-10-2009, 04:10

I've been on Virgin Media 50MB since it first came out and everything was good for the first couple months but now also I'm noticing these fluctuating speeds.

Can someone please look at my downstream and upstream which you have talked about and can you tell me if anything is wrong here with the results?

http://img198.imageshack.us/i/26102009040456.jpg/

http://img12.imageshack.us/i/26102009040523.jpg/

I have had 2 Virgin Media Technicians round one being a senior and they told me that there is nothing wrong with anything in the house i.e the modem etc. I am directly connected to the 50mb modem but notice this weird fluctuating speed on 50mb, it's not as good as it was before and you can physically see the bursts and drops in speed and also places like speedtest.net are showing inconsistent speeds.

Peter_

26-10-2009, 06:22

Merc

26-10-2009, 19:29

No issues with your Power levels so if you still have issues call the 50Mb support line after 0800 on 0800 052 0431.

Thanks for confirming that. I really don't know what is happening but basically for the first 2 months after 50MB was installed you really could see the blistering quickness from 20MB i.e things like streaming on You Tube were loading in literally a couple seconds, downloading files was quick and everything all round.

Then I started noticing these 'bursts' which people talk about. I used to use the Maidenhead server on speedtest.net for years and always found it to be generally consistent but that changed too and was showing 8-9MB download on a 50MB connection. Now the London server seems more accurate where before it was the case that the London server was completely inaccurate. I was I must say taking into account that load of the server could give and would give inaccurate readings but You can physically see the difference and the fluctuating because of the bursts the 50MB downloads and streams at and before this wasn't the case, before it was super charged all the time.