New 50mb install - fluctuating speeds

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.

[img]Download Failed (1)[/img]

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?

webcrawler2050 · 11-10-2009, 14:59

Power levels are within operational parameters.

How are you connected?

buckleb · 11-10-2009, 16:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by webcrawler2050

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by buckleb

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.

Code:

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by buckleb

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.

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moldova

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.

Thanks, will do.

Ignitionnet · 11-10-2009, 19:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by webcrawler2050

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pontiac

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moldova

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pontiac

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by buckleb

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