broadband and downloading

[mantrabooks]

I have had a problem with downloading and the way the computer works when downloading for some time. What happens is when I am downloading the internet goes very slow even though I have 8mb broadband and the download speed is only around 40k (not even one meg). I have wondered if this is anything to do with my modem. The computer works fine its only the internet that slows right down when downloading. Has anybody any ideas about this?

[entwisi]

it depends on what you are downloading, where from, teh speed of their site and the contention ratio of your connection.

Try doing a proper speed test from a repuatble site like adslguide.org. This will tell you if your equipment etc is working fine

forgot to say, just because its advertised as 8M doesn't mean you will get 8M, it depends on distance from exchamge quality of line etc.

[mantrabooks]

Originally Posted by entwisi

it depends on what you are downloading, where from, teh speed of their site and the contention ratio of your connection.

Try doing a proper speed test from a repuatble site like adslguide.org. This will tell you if your equipment etc is working fine

forgot to say, just because its advertised as 8M doesn't mean you will get 8M, it depends on distance from exchamge quality of line etc.

I have done a speed test and everything is fine - this was the result

1.4 megabits per second
Communications 1.4 megabits per second
Storage 165.3 kilobytes per second
1MB file download 6.2 seconds
Subjective rating Good

The speed is not really in question but why the internet slows down when downloading anything. I wondered if it had anything to do with modems. I have had speeds of up to 400k + and 40k from lots of different places but I still get the same result while downloading. The computer works fine and i can multi-task but while downloading browsing is slow?



..

[entwisi]

what are you trying to download and from where. As mentioned it depends on the site you are connecting to.

post an example link an I'll see what speed I get

looking at your speed test, 1.4Mbps is nowhere near 8M, its nearer 1.5 - 2M. That should give you ~140KBps(Notice teh capital B as opposed to little b, it makes a big difference)

storage ??? whats that meant to be tsting because its V slow for a hard disk

A quick check of my 2M(waiting for Orange to unbundle) line gave 1.7Mbps with a 1M file in 4.5 seconds.

We need to check where you are downloading from, I reckons its either their site that slow or if P2P then teh peers are on slow lines or are sharing with lots of users simulatneously

[***Mr D***]

I have a simalar problem with broadband.

I think its to do with the line coming in to my home, according to BT im on 8mb.

PFFFFFff - more like one meg, although I dont fully understand how it all works.

This is a link I use to check speed.

http://www.speedtest.net/

and this is mine.

[WillowTheWhisp]

At the risk of being accused of stating the blindingly obvious again, they do say "up to" 8M which in theory can mean anything at all, as long as it's not more than, and in many cases often does.

[mantrabooks]

Originally Posted by mantrabooks

I have had a problem with downloading and the way the computer works when downloading for some time. What happens is when I am downloading the internet goes very slow even though I have 8mb broadband and the download speed is only around 40k (not even one meg). I have wondered if this is anything to do with my modem. The computer works fine its only the internet that slows right down when downloading. Has anybody any ideas about this?

Thanks for the speed test - but as I have said above speed is not a relevance here. In the past I have had over 400k (thats 4mb) speed downloading for certain sites (I cant remember so please don't ask). But the speed is not the relevance here. The problem is when downloading internet browsing becomes very slow - and its doesn't matter what speed I am downloading at or where from. Here is my speed test.







..by the way London was a little slower.

[entwisi]

Try to be a bit more 'specific' in your language. Are you 'downloading' as in files being saved to disk or just web browsing? Have you tried different browsers, cleared your cache etc? Is there anything else running in teh background?

One thing to look at is when it slows down, open task manager and select teh 'processes' tab, double click the memory title to sort by memory use and see how much your browser is using. Compare that with how much RAM etc you have in your machine and any other programs that are using a fair amount of memory. Is it just a resource issue of the PC?

if its just web browsing, how are you 'measuring it' at 40K?

can you give us the absolute detail of what you are doing to get these figures etc.

[SamF]

We have the same problems here. Even BT can't decide how much the line can hold, one day we check the post code to see what we can recieve and it says 6.5meg, the next it says 576k. I can only assume they are working on the cabling at the moment.