Optimising your Broadband Connection

[jont]

I don't appear to have a speed problem per se - reporting around 6,350 kbps on an >8Mb line ... *but* I have a real problem with the stability of the connection ...

8 time out of 10 when I hit a weblink or my email program collects mail I will get a time out after 30 secs or so of trying to connect ... it's driving me mad !!

Any thoughts ?? ... I am plugged in to the test socket ... I have 87.86.189.16 and 195.40.1.36 set as DNS in the router - I have tried both the sky supplied router and my own netgear 834G ... all with no real change ...

The other thing I have noticed is that I also get really bad torrent downloads ... interms of peer connections (generally <10 of over 200) and therefore the spped is <3kbps !!) ...

I am running OSX 10.4.8 on a Mac G5 1.8Ghz DP with 2Gb RAM so the computer is no real slouch - even in these intel days !!

Any help greatly appreciated ...

cheers

Jon

[Magicsid]

Excellent....

on "Mid" Package, I have gone from 2.8mbps to 6.6mbps.

One question though...Does this have any side effectes in doing this to my PC ? no matter how trivial.

Also do you think i will ever need to revert back to the old setttings before using this TCP optimizer... will there ever be a need ?

So far so good..

Thankyou

[Magicsid]

Originally Posted by Stephen Kirrage

It would be helpful to have an explanation in one of the forum's 'sticky' posts regarding speeds. Here's what I mean: I pay SKY for a 16MB connection; the actual connection seems to negociate somewhere between 9 and 13MB. Currently it is 9490KBps. When I speed test at BroadbandMax.co.uk I get 8485 download but with performance.toast.net I get 3361 and with btopenworld.com/speedtest i get 930KBps. What is that all about?!!

Where do i do a speed test on " BroadbandMax.co.uk " I cant see the option anywhere ?

[Saturday]

Namesco BroadbandMax ADSL Broadband Bandwidth speedtest | Test your ADSL Broadband connection speed

[rwdjones]

Hi
Am fairly new to all this and think i have messed up my connection. I am supposed to be on Max but with poorer speeds than my old V21 I meg.
Anyway i used the optimizer and was not to happy, went in and changed it again, and now my speed seem even worse, if thats possible.
Anyway i have now lost i think my original settings, is there anyway that i can go back, eg can i use system restore?
Also the the speed on the MTU says to adjust mine to 1500 isn't this only 1.5meg if so what is stopping me gettiing a high figure if i am on sky max?
Any help for a complete non techno would be appreciated

[Saturday]

Hi - you're getting a bit muddled up here.

Your router syncs with the exchange and this speed is reported in your router admin pages. This is known as the connection speed.

If you run a speedtest then the reported figures are your upload and download speeds. These will always be less than your connection speed (typically about 85%) due to transmission overheads. If they are substantially lower then you may see some benefit from using a tool like TCPOptimizer. This does nothing to your router - it simply makes adjustments to your PC settings to in effect widen the "pipe" between your PC and the router to avoid it being a bottleneck.

MTU stands for Maximum Transmission Unit and is nothing to do with connection or download speed. It is a measure of the maximum size of datagrams the PC will send. The internet typically can handle packets of 1500 bytes. Bigger than this and they have to be broken up (fragmented), smaller than this and you're having to send more packets than needed. Both of these will have a negative impact on the amount of data you can receive or send in a given time.

I thought TCPOptimizer allowed you to put the settings back to default?

If you would like help in seeing how good your connection is and whether there is room for improvement then you need to post your connection speed stats and the results from a good speedtest site such as Namesco BroadbandMax ADSL Broadband Bandwidth speedtest | Test your ADSL Broadband connection speed

Hope this info helps

[rwdjones]

Thanks very helpful.
I managed to run the optimizer a few times and change the settings each time consquently i have lost the option to return to the original settings! which is why i hoped that system restore would do the trick.
If i get the connection stats from site and post these together with my connection details perhaps you or someone could give me further advice.

Ps great site.
Regards Bob

[Saturday]

Have a look in the TCPOptimizer folder - I think it may do automatic backups each time you make changes, though maybe you need to select this option?