Something is capping my internet speed

[Kondrath]

For the past few weeks I've been getting around 1-2mb download speed. I'm paying for 6mb. Comcast has been to my house almost every other day since then, thinking that they found the problem. They never really did anything, though. The most they did was get new cables, then do speed tests over and over for about an hour. None of them new a thing about computers. "Sorry, we don't know about computers..."

Then why are they working their?

Anyway. Today they pulled out a laptop and tried it on my same connection, and they were getting around 8mbps down speed. They used the same site I did, but get better results. They're now convinced that there's something wrong with my computer. Since there's apparently only one man at Comcast who knows how to use a computer, he'll be coming up this Friday.

But I'd rather save myself the trouble of dealing with them again.

Is there any way I can determine what may be reducing my internet speed?

I've turned the firewall off. Same. Used direct modem rather than through a router. Same. Tried a different Ethernet card. Same.

To my knowledge, I don't have any strange processes running that would interfere. I just scanned the other day, the only things that were found were a few cookies. (Running NOD32, Spybot, superantispyware.) Computer's running fine.

Also, when testing on dslreports.com, when the upload speed test is running, a get a message saying "ISP compression detected, results may not be accurate." No one at comcast has any idea what "ISP compression" means. They say they're not limiting my account at all or anything.

They'd don't have the slightest clue what's wrong, since one computer gets 8mbps, while mine gets 2.

Any ideas?

[trag3dy]

I don't really know where to start...perhaps just back up everything you want on your computer and reformat? That is if you don't really care to know what is causing your problem and you're really convinced that it's your computer and not comcast throttling you.

[soldier1st]

well run process explorer and process monitor and see if it shows any network activity,file sharing apps will slow internet unless you throttle it to not be s bad.

[offin]

Same as the guy above, try killing unnecessary processes that use network connection and maybe reset/flush dns.

[episode]

Have you tried booting into safe mode and running a speed test?

[_neutrino Veteran]

was the person that ran the speed test doing so with or without your router connected... did he connect directly into the modem. If this is the case i have experienced this before where the router is in the process of going bad will slow down connection speed to a crawl before totally dieing.

[Kondrath]

I just reformatted about a month or two ago. It was working fine for a while, then the speed died. I tried using another account that I have on the computer that I have set to "performance" mode, with hardly anything running, and I got the same results. Already flushed the DNS a bunch of times.

Although I don't see anything in my processes that could kill my speed, there may be. I'm not the best when it comes to this kind of thing. But I don't see anything that would be using up bandwidth...

Edit: He got good results with and without the router.

Also, I wanted to try and load safemode, but for some reason my computer won't load up safemode properly... Safemode without networking sometimes works, but with networking it doesn't. My computer's somewhat stupid...Lol.

[bakup]

I don't really know where to start...perhaps just back up everything you want on your computer and reformat? That is if you don't really care to know what is causing your problem and you're really convinced that it's your computer and not comcast throttling you.

+1 but I don't think comcast is throttling since there isn't any problems on the laptop.

TheMelee, how are you getting around 8Mbps if your paying for 6, what site did you use? What do you get with Speedtest.net on both computers? Maybe get a livecd and test your connection under linux on the same computer.

[_neutrino Veteran]

another option if safemode does not work is to run a linux live CD and test the speed with that. just in case there is something in windows that even in safemode is wonky (such as connection configurations and such)

[Kondrath]

We didn't compare using speedtest.net . But before then, I was getting around 3-4 and a half mbps. We used dslreports to compared.

Linux, eh? I've never tried that before. I'll have to try and find a blank CD...

[iamwhoiam]

was the person that ran the speed test doing so with or without your router connected... did he connect directly into the modem. If this is the case i have experienced this before where the router is in the process of going bad will slow down connection speed to a crawl before totally dieing.

I just replaced a router a month or so ago because of that very same problem. Other than my connection speeds dropping I was also getting frequent disconnects.

[Kondrath]

Well, I've determined that it has to be something wrong with windows. I just ran Ubuntu and got 22mbps down. :blink:

Speeds were amazingly fast. Back to windows now, and it's down to 2mb again.

What's wrong here?

Should I screen shot my processes?

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

I wonder if your computer may be infected by a form of malware using stealth or rootkit-type technologies to bypass detection by your trifecta of anti-malware software. The low bandwidth report plus the fact that you cannot start in Safe Mode implies the possibility of an infection as some malware prevents the VGA driver from initializing in Safe Mode to make their creations more difficult to remote.

You could try running an anti-rootkit program like Blacklight, GMER, RkU and so forth to see if they find anything anomalous with the system.

Another thing you might want to try is booting your computer from a Linux Live CD with anti-malware software on it in order to scan the computer from outside the normal Windows environment. One disc you can try is the Trinity Rescue Kit.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[TonyNZ]

Why hasn't anyone suggested he try taking the laptop up to his room to see if it could be a line fault? (damaged cat5 can reduce speeds)

[Kondrath]

Why hasn't anyone suggested he try taking the laptop up to his room to see if it could be a line fault? (damaged cat5 can reduce speeds)

It seems people are misunderstanding and not fully reading my first few posts. The laptop was the comcast worker's. He used the same line, modem, etc. and got better speeds than my PC. I don't have a laptop.

Also, I stated I tried Ubuntu live CD (Linux based OS) and I got 22mbps download speed.

I'll try running one of the programs that goretsky mentioned.

[Kondrath]

I scanned with GMER... I have no idea how to work this program, so I saved a log.

(I'm aware that utorrent and peerguardian are running at the moment. They aren't causing the major slowdown.)

I couldn't upload the notepad file, so I uploaded it in a wordpad document.

rootkitlogthing.rtf

[Kondrath]

I'm sorry for posting three times in a row, but I was unable to edit my last post due to time constraints.

I just did another speed test on all 3 of my browsers.

Firefox: 2mb

IE: 6-8mb

Google Chrome: 7mb

Something's up with firefox...

Even though those speeds are great, why in the world was Ubuntu pulling 17-22mbps?

[I am Reid]

I'm sorry for posting three times in a row, but I was unable to edit my last post due to time constraints.

I just did another speed test on all 3 of my browsers.

Firefox: 2mb

IE: 6-8mb

Google Chrome: 7mb

Something's up with firefox...

Even though those speeds are great, why in the world was Ubuntu pulling 17-22mbps?

because you are probably doing something wrong

[Azusa]

I'm sorry for posting three times in a row, but I was unable to edit my last post due to time constraints.

I just did another speed test on all 3 of my browsers.

Firefox: 2mb

IE: 6-8mb

Google Chrome: 7mb

Something's up with firefox...

Even though those speeds are great, why in the world was Ubuntu pulling 17-22mbps?

I used to have speed issues with FF try disabling all add-ons and the re-enabling them one by one to see if one of them is sucking bandwidth......

By disabling my (14) add-ons i got a 2 to 3 second reduction in load time...

also thank you for giving a wee project that i want to try now.

Edited January 1, 2009 by yurithedragon

[bakup]

I'm sorry for posting three times in a row, but I was unable to edit my last post due to time constraints.

I just did another speed test on all 3 of my browsers.

Firefox: 2mb

IE: 6-8mb

Google Chrome: 7mb

Something's up with firefox...

Even though those speeds are great, why in the world was Ubuntu pulling 17-22mbps?

What do you get on these browsers when you actually download a big file. Try something fast like a video from Revision3.

[_dandy_]

Anyone else think it might be worth bringing your system to a friend/neighbour just to make absolutely, positively sure it only happens with your Windows setup, and the problem isn't with your line/modem/router?

OTOH, since you've already established that you're getting decent speeds when running off a Live CD, that pretty much narrows it down...

Or try a clean VM, hosted through your existing Windows setup.

[Kondrath]

What do you get on these browsers when you actually download a big file. Try something fast like a video from Revision3.

Firefox - 13 to 16 minutes for a 565mb file

IE - 11-13 minutes for 565mb file

Pretty much the same thing.

Just out of curiosity, should Firefox be using 70,000k of memory usage? Last night it was using 159,000 with just one tab open. (Neowin.)

Memory leak causing the bandwidth slowdown?

[Azusa]

Firefox - 13 to 16 minutes for a 565mb file

IE - 11-13 minutes for 565mb file

Pretty much the same thing.

Just out of curiosity, should Firefox be using 70,000k of memory usage? Last night it was using 159,000 with just one tab open. (Neowin.)

Memory leak causing the bandwidth slowdown?

Did you try disabling all add-ons?

[Kondrath]

Did you try disabling all add-ons?

Yeah, I don't even have any add-ons.

[mclaren05]

Im sorry but from the start I already knew the solution:

Format and reinstall Windows.

The problem lies in malware on your PC which is slowing down your connection. Its plain and simple.