My Internet connection download speed is very very low

Oldtree

I have done a lot of surfing to try to get an answer to my problem but I have not been successful. I would be very grateful for any advice or guidance.

I am running:
Windows Vista
Internet Explorer 7
PCI Soft Voice Soft Ring Modem with a maximum port speed of 115200
2 x intell pentium 1.6GHz processors
2Gb RAM with average use of between 37% and 54%.
Norton Internet Security 2009
Windows Defender
Lavasoft Adaware

Running Compaq hardware diagnostic tools modem test all is ok except when it gets to the “simple connection test” the telephone number that comes up is 01800931990, but this can be overwritten to put in the usual 1893252525.

I changed the modem cable, but there was no improvement. I regularly scan and do the usual maintenance such as delete temp files, browser history, etc.

Using the Windows Task Manager the maximum link speed indicated (in the odd spike) is 85 Kbps about 100%. The average usage indicated here would appear to be at about 40-55% 34-47Kbps.

However when I download files the download speed is indicated in the download window at about 3.5Kbps, having spiked at about 15Kbps initially. This is shown to be about 29-35% in the windows task manager, i.e. 25-30Kbps! As it takes 5 minutes to download a 1Mb file the download speed is 3.5Kbps and not as the task manager indicates.

I live in the country (no broadband) and the lines are not the best, a friends connection speed recently went from 32 to 16 Kbps. If the windows task manager % is correct and the download window of 3.5Kbps is also correct, that would indicate a maximum download speed of about 16Kbps.

Is this the best I can hope for or is there any way to increase the download speed? I do not understand why it drops so dramatically from around 16Kbps in the initial spike to 3.5Kbps. Is there any way to increase the download speed from 3.5 to 16? Have I been infected with a rogue dialer?

Thank you

Kensington

Your download speed is 3.5KBps (KiloBYTES), and as there is 8 bits in a byte, would be 3.5*8 = approx. 28Kbps (KiloBITS). The reason IE and Task Manager appear to give two conflicting values is that IE will give you the download speed in KiloBYTES (KB - big but Task Manager gives you the download speed in KilBITS (Kb - little b). So, in actual fact, the two values are actually roughly correct and equal. This'd be what you'd expect out of an average dialup connection. 5 minutes per megabyte is also what could be expected given your speed: 1024KB in a MB, 1024KB/3.5KBps = 292 seconds = 4.8 minutes.

56/8 = 7KBps is the absolute most you could ever expect to get out of a dialup connection and even then, that's a purely theoretical, ideal world figure. Unless you can get IDSN (which only really doubles what you have at the moment, and will cost you two seperate dialup phonecalls), you're stuck at pretty much the speed you have at the moment

Oldtree

Thank you for that. Its a relief to know that my connection speed is normalish as I was very worried that I had a bug.

Roll on broadband.