Scoobert wrote:

I have been having a problem latly with my cable internet speed. It is normaly about 3000kbps, but latly it has been about 500kbps. I called my ISP, they sent a guy out, he did a lot of line checks and replaced a few cable lines and heads. He also gave me a new modem. None of these helped. It all seems to point to this computer. But how could this be? My only other computer is my linux computer and java doesnt want to install on it for some reason. If I had a windows 98 cd I would throw it on my linux computer for testing, but I dont. Anyone know how a computer could stop recieving and sending data though the internet? I have checked everything I can think of, and cant figure out why it has decided to do this. I even tryed switching between wired and wireless connection, no change. I have even switched virus scanners as a step to see if that could help, and nothing.

[Edit] I know it is not viruses, spyware, or adware. Not my router either.

What sort of internet do you have? Hell mine goes at about 200-300 on american sites, and 600 on australian sites, and its the fastest basically i can get.

Cable running 3Mbps? That's a new one to me! I was under the impression that cable runs anywhere from 300kbps-1.6Mbps normally, depending on the provider (Comcast, for example, runs at about 1.5Mbps)- the normal range still seems to be between 600-1000Kbps for most users for the major U.S. providers.

I do hear that speeds up to 2Mbps are now available in some areas though.

Back "in the old days" (less than 10 years ago), a cable connection from an ISP was shared amoung the users in a geographic area. So the first cable user in one's neighborhood would experience really good bandwidth (unless the ISP throttled it back, or did some sort of traffic shaping), but as more people on the street got cable, the bandwidth got divided up evenly amoung all the users. After a certain point of saturation (say 10 users per area), the ISP would run another cable into the area (or just turn another cable on if the infrastructure was already in place) to handle more users.

I don't know if that is still practiced today, but it might explain why your speed has gone done - possibly more cable users in your area recently. Any small businesses pop up lately nearby?

[edit:] A quick check at http://www.cablemodeminfo.com/ says that "...Cable Modems are up to 10-20Mbps download. Typical downloads for the majority are over 300Kbps, or close to 600Kbps, but the speed of the cable modem depends on a few things. First, it depends on how many users are on the system, since the cable technology is a "shared" bandwidth. This "Shared" technology can be drained by too many users using too much throughput. This often happens if a Cable Provider opens up the network and let's everyone run their own server. This causes congestion on the network and slows the connection speed (Upload and Download) to a halt. The second factor to cable modem speed is a throttle or limit on the cable modem itself. Some Cable providers will limit the upload or download speed on the cable modem, and this could affect your connection speed..."

Elsewhere on the same site: "...Cable Modems use a shared networking technology, where all the cable modems share a single pipe to the Internet. This pipe speed will fluctuate depending on the number of subscribers on the network..."

So, more people using cable in your neighborhood is probably the reason.

many websites use simple bandwidth testing techinques, usually using a large graphic/large piece of text to do the timing. Heck, you could do it with PHP and a large graphic.

Google is your friend!

I had saw that one, something lead me to think it was java, anywho it worked. 5.4 megabits per second! Deffently my PC giving me these troubles(the 5.4 was on my linux).

Comcast advertised 1.5 mbps for awhile, they just recently doubled it(which I noticed a week before they started advertising it). Although I had to run a registry editor to get it to actually GO 3 mpbs.

Well I did have to use a registry editor to actually GET the whole 3 mbps from the greedy jerks. Cablemonkey or something it was called.

Crispy wrote:

I think digi's saying that despite registry tweaks, you're still unlikely to get the full 3Mbps if that speed is shared amongst your neighbourhood.

At least not consistently.

If those speeds are accurate, you have nothing to complain about.

Scoobert wrote:

I have been having a problem latly with my cable internet speed. It is normaly about 3000kbps, but latly it has been about 500kbps. I called my ISP, they sent a guy out, he did a lot of line checks and replaced a few cable lines and heads. He also gave me a new modem. None of these helped. It all seems to point to this computer. But how could this be? My only other computer is my linux computer and java doesnt want to install on it for some reason. If I had a windows 98 cd I would throw it on my linux computer for testing, but I dont. Anyone know how a computer could stop recieving and sending data though the internet? I have checked everything I can think of, and cant figure out why it has decided to do this. I even tryed switching between wired and wireless connection, no change. I have even switched virus scanners as a step to see if that could help, and nothing.

[Edit] I know it is not viruses, spyware, or adware. Not my router either.

I thought 500kbs, is how much you are sopossed to get with cable modem or dsl, and dial up is 56kbs. Can you tell a difference in speed when loading up a page?

Actually digi understands my improper use of the terms, no matter how many times im told I can't remember which one is which. Its advertised speed its 3000 kbps.