Cable Forum - Logmein Hamachi VPN permanently affecting downstream speed.

Good morning,

Our twin sons have a Windows 10 gaming PC each. We built these ourselves with the highest spec we could afford. Our Virgin Media connection gives us 550Mb/37Mb consistently over Ethernet connections from our Asus RT-AC88U router. (CAT5e cable) Everything has been running beautifully for two years. We keep software, video drivers etc fully up-to-date.

As part of their wish to improve negotiation with the best game servers they installed Logmein Hamachi VPN. (free version)

"LogMeIn Hamachi is a hosted VPN service that lets you securely extend LAN-like networks to distributed teams, mobile workers and your gamer friends alike -within minutes". https://www.vpn.net/

Immediately the twins noticed that their downstream speed was pegged back to a maximum of 120Mb, not only whilst in contact with gaming servers for game play and software updates, but also when not running games. This still applied after reboot and using different speed tests.

We looked for configuration issues, but no choices were apparent in Hamachi settings that let the user decide bandwidth. We checked out and reinstalled any network adaptors including the Hamachi VPN adaptor. We updated all Ethernet adaptor drivers and ensured that they were still set to Full Duplex 1GBs. No improvement!

In desperation we uninstalled Hamachi VPN - remove settings and files option. To our amazement - No improvement! I went through their systems including the registry deleting all evidence of Hamachi Logmein. (User comments observe that the software is very poor at fully uninstalling itself.) Still the bandwidth was pegged back, even after resetting network adaptors.

Next step was to take one of the PCs back to bare-bones Windows 10 Home and then reinstall everything step-by-step, conducting speed tests at each stage. This was to eliminate all other possibilities. Sure enough, broadband speed had gone back to normal 550Mb, even with all previous games installed. So, we reinstalled Logmein Hamachi. Immediately, even without using game servers, speed had dropped to 120Mb. Uninstallation did not restore full speed.

My questions are this: Has anyone any idea what is going on here? Has anyone else had a similar experience? Has anyone a clue what Windows settings Hamachi could have permanently changed that remain even after Hamachi is completely removed from a PC? All suggestions welcome.

With no solution available, we will, of course, do a Windows refresh on both PCs and stay completely clear of Hamachi VPN.