10mb service never been more than 1.5mb

rodeoraymond · 21-04-2007, 16:35

Hi

Have been with Virgin/NTL for many years. Have upgraded speed from 300kb, 600kb to 1mb (all through old Pace STB), got stand alone Cable Modem when speed was upgraded to 2mb and in last week have got V+ box as part of the VIP package and therefore speed should be 10mb.

The best speed I can get is around 220kb and often as low as 120kb. Also, often pages will not load on first attempt and the refresh button in IE needs to be pressed, or it takes a good few seconds after keying in the web address before any activity over the network can be seen, or web pages will partially load and the rest will just now appear - is this normal?

My wife phoned Virgin last week - had to go through all the tests on the computer i.e. downloading file from netguard and taking speed, running in safe mode etc. Engineer was sent out today - replaced modem. Guess what - no change? Have just phoned Virgin technical team - had to go through all the tests again - same result - engineer coming out again this Wednesday.

I am beginning to think there is something wrong with the cabling coming into the house (or indeed in the house between junction box and splitter behind tv as the same cabling has been in the house long before we moved here (2002)? Can faults develop in underground cabling from box on street to house (or indeed in the box on the street itself?)

Does anyone have any ideas as to how to get somewhere other than phone Virgin and have to go through all the tests on the computer when you know for sure that it is not at fault (I am quite experienced in computers and keep software up-to-date and run antivirus and antispam software regularly)?

Thanks for some help as it is driving me mad!!

Paul K · 21-04-2007, 16:55

get the engineer to fully check your levels and ask to do a download test while he is there. Have you tried booting from a Ubuntu "live" cd or something similar to make sure nothing in your settings has corrupted?

Nedkelly · 21-04-2007, 16:58

What type of modem do you have ?

rodeoraymond · 21-04-2007, 20:24

Hi

Thanks for the advice.

Engineer did test whilst here although I didn't see the actual speed (downloaded Service Pack for XP from Microsoft). When I've done it today I've got about 152KB/sec. Sorry, I've never heard of Ubunto Live - what exactly is it and can it be purchased/downloaded??

The stand alone modem is one of the new black ones with Virgin Media on it.

How do I check the settings on the computer for the internet connection and what should the settings be?

Thanks guys