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RainmakerRaw · 08-06-2015, 00:28

Sorry, I don't call here often and only just saw your reply. It could be a TAP adapter issue. PIA's software is patchy at best and their support even worse. IIRC the latest updated TAP they provided is borked and people on their forum had rolled back to the earlier version.

Things to try:

To save messing with your Windows setup too much, I'd highly recommend you first burn a Linux live USB (eg Linux Mint 17.1 or Ubuntu 15.04) and test the VPN that way. You may be surprised. At least if you get great speeds you can rule out your network or whatever and focus on what may be wrong in Windows. Do run the tests with the SH in modem only mode, as otherwise you'll find your speeds crippled regardless.

If testing from Windows, get the SH back into modem only mode, and test using OpenVPN GUI with the .ovpn file for their NL server (they're in the client support area). It would also be useful to try changing the openvpn send and receive buffers, as they're pretty screwy on Windows, and changing them can give a pretty dramatic speed increase. You'd need to change the buffers by adding parameters to the .ovpn file (Google will help here).

10Mbps is way too low though even for Windows. I only run Linux and BSD these days but when I tested Win7, Win8.1 and Win10 they all worked fine.

It would also be helpful to uninstall completely the PIA software before trying the above. You may also wish to buy a cheap VPN trial from a company like AirVPN or VPN.ac to rule out issues with PIA directly. They're only a couple of quid for 3 days / a week / whatever.

08-06-2015, 00:28	#128
RainmakerRaw Inactive Join Date: Jan 2010 Services: Gig1 Posts: 230	Re: VPN Sorry, I don't call here often and only just saw your reply. It could be a TAP adapter issue. PIA's software is patchy at best and their support even worse. IIRC the latest updated TAP they provided is borked and people on their forum had rolled back to the earlier version. Things to try: To save messing with your Windows setup too much, I'd highly recommend you first burn a Linux live USB (eg Linux Mint 17.1 or Ubuntu 15.04) and test the VPN that way. You may be surprised. At least if you get great speeds you can rule out your network or whatever and focus on what may be wrong in Windows. Do run the tests with the SH in modem only mode, as otherwise you'll find your speeds crippled regardless. If testing from Windows, get the SH back into modem only mode, and test using OpenVPN GUI with the .ovpn file for their NL server (they're in the client support area). It would also be useful to try changing the openvpn send and receive buffers, as they're pretty screwy on Windows, and changing them can give a pretty dramatic speed increase. You'd need to change the buffers by adding parameters to the .ovpn file (Google will help here). 10Mbps is way too low though even for Windows. I only run Linux and BSD these days but when I tested Win7, Win8.1 and Win10 they all worked fine. It would also be helpful to uninstall completely the PIA software before trying the above. You may also wish to buy a cheap VPN trial from a company like AirVPN or VPN.ac to rule out issues with PIA directly. They're only a couple of quid for 3 days / a week / whatever.