Total Dispair with connection speed

I've raised this problem with NTL tech support several times over the christmas period, i periodically get download speeds of 15-300k when i have a 600k connection. They keep saying to me that its due to spyware and the number of ports i have open (even though 90% of these say waiting), so i ran adaware as asked and killied everything and ran a full virus check which didnt show up anything. I still periodically get the same problem so this hasnt improved anything. The bizarre thing is that for some periods of time i get downloads of around 570k as i always used to.

The first time i had this problem 1 other person in the orton area or Peterborough where i live said that they were experiencing the same problem.

NTL's suggestion as always is that i should format my hard drive and then only install windows and nothing else, they even suggested not running norton internet security or taking any of the updates from microsoft as things like media player 9 contain spyware.

Any ideas how i can move this towards a resolution?

[Stuartbe]

Programs saturating your upload could slow down your connection but I think that you need to check your connection speeds !!! 300k download is massive - if your talking about 300kBs and not 300kbs ( bits/ bytes )

You will be lucky to get 140Kbs on 1mb broadband so if you are getting this I would say nothing and be a vey happy customer ;-)

I would install a decent personal firewall that has aplication level control - zonealarm or kerio personal firewall are good. They will be able to tell you if anything is trying to send data out to the net.

One last thing -- Make sure that you are not running file share apps like kazza as they will often use all your upload bandwidth and slow internet speed down.

HTH

Originally Posted by stuartbe

Programs saturating your upload could slow down your connection but I think that you need to check your connection speeds !!! 300k download is massive - if your talking about 300kBs and not 300kbs ( bits/ bytes )

You will be lucky to get 140Kbs on 1mb broadband so if you are getting this I would say nothing and be a vey happy customer ;-)

I would install a decent personal firewall that has aplication level control - zonealarm or kerio personal firewall are good. They will be able to tell you if anything is trying to send data out to the net.

One last thing -- Make sure that you are not running file share apps like kazza as they will often use all your upload bandwidth and slow internet speed down.

HTH

thx for this, i was talking about 300kbs ie about 35kBs

i have Norton Internet security running. Have also run net limiter as this shows you what is being sent and recieved by each process. NTL say that you wont be able to see if its spyware which i cant beleive.

i have emule loaded but am not running it

[Stuartbe]

Originally Posted by gary_580

thx for this, i was talking about 300kbs ie about 35kBs

i have Norton Internet security running. Have also run net limiter as this shows you what is being sent and recieved by each process. NTL say that you wont be able to see if its spyware which i cant beleive.

i have emule loaded but am not running it

I thought it might me kbs If it was KBs I am coming round to do somw downloading

If the spyware is sending packets out then you will be able to see this. There is no way spyware can get out of the machine without a app level firewall detecting it. I dont think a lot of NIS myself so I cant comment on the software (not being a regular user of it)

It may be worth running a packet sniffer on the system to see if anything is slipping past. You can get a 30day trial sniffer from http://www.kerio.com/knm_home.html

[Neil]

Typical BS from ntl I'm afraid.

Get yourself something like DUMeter ( www.dumeter.com) It will show you exactly what traffic is going up/down on your PC.

NTL's suggestion as always is that i should format my hard drive and then only install windows and nothing else, they even suggested not running norton internet security or taking any of the updates from microsoft as things like media player 9 contain spyware.

Sorry, but that is just so "I don't know the answer so I'll just BS the customer" it's untrue.

Originally Posted by Neil

Typical BS from ntl I'm afraid.

Get yourself something like DUMeter ( www.dumeter.com) It will show you exactly what traffic is going up/down on your PC.



Sorry, but that is just so "I don't know the answer so I'll just BS the customer" it's untrue.

Thanks neil, i know thats the case but i want them to sort it out so need to get hard facts that i can push their way. They keep telling me if the trace my ip its the last hop to my machine thats the problem. Not sure what they mean by the last hop. Im assuming its from the STB to the ethernet card in the pc

Am i right in thniking DU meter monitors at connection level and not application level within connection? Therefore i csn monitor my BB connection but if there is something amiss it wont tell me what is hogging the b/w?

[blackthorn]

Just been looking at the Kerio personal firewall on their site. Looks ok but I`ve got a question.
If i download it and run it, after the 30 days, it becomes the freeware version. Do you still get updates on the freeware version?

[Stuartbe]

Originally Posted by blackthorn

Just been looking at the Kerio personal firewall on their site. Looks ok but I`ve got a question.
If i download it and run it, after the 30 days, it becomes the freeware version. Do you still get updates on the freeware version?

Yes m8 I believe so.

I think its just the web pop up blocking that stops working - no big loss as its not all that great anyway.

HTH

[vaiolator]

Originally Posted by Neil

Typical BS from ntl I'm afraid.

Surely not! Having been with NTL for three years, I didn't realise my connection problems, (when they happen) were because;
1) NTL broadband isn't compatable with Zone Alarm. Any firewall screws up a connection.
2)It is also not compatable Windows ME, nor XP when I informed them my other computer had the same problems.
If I had known this before I ever bought a computer I could have saved a fortune.
Oh well, my fault for being a user of a geeky operating sytem!
(Message posted using ME, on NTL BB through ZA firewall)

Originally Posted by vaiolator

Surely not! Having been with NTL for three years, I didn't realise my connection problems, (when they happen) were because;
1) NTL broadband isn't compatable with Zone Alarm. Any firewall screws up a connection.
2)It is also not compatable Windows ME, nor XP when I informed them my other computer had the same problems.
If I had known this before I ever bought a computer I could have saved a fortune.
Oh well, my fault for being a user of a geeky operating sytem!
(Message posted using ME, on NTL BB through ZA firewall)

hahaha very funny. Funny that, the NTL tech said to me its because you have too many open ports, in response i said, but if they are currently using 0.1kB/s dont you think i still have a lot to spare? apparently not typical NTL dont want people to use the network rather than try fixing it!!