UPC 10 Mb hold up?

geronimofinch

Hi there, was on 3mb, upgraded to 10mb last Tuesday. Ringing Chorus every day to find out what exactly is going on as still only getting 2.2mbs on the speedtests run. Sometimes less than 1mb. They told me that it is showing as 10mb from their side since 10AM yesterday 9/11 morning. I've rebooted, reset, done everything umpteen times and still only getting 2.2 at most (the original 3mb package I had).

My question is is there anything that could be preventing the 10mb from my side as Chorus are adamant that from their side, it is showing my connection to have a 10mb line?

Tea_Bag

is your pc wired or using wireless? try using the cable, while making sure there are ZERO other computers on the network, and you arent downloading anything, which may include windows updates and torrents etc.

then run a speedtest and post up the results. also, if its still unsatisfactory, and if its possible, try using a different cable. had a problem on a friends pc a while ago and it turned out to be the cable after hours of testing.

geronimofinch

It's a netgear router wireless. Not DL anything and no updates taking place.

Tea_Bag

geronimofinch wrote: »

It's a netgear router wireless. Not DL anything and no updates taking place.

interesting that you just got it installed and they gave you a netgear router (with scientific atlantic modem?)

can you test it on wired straight to the modem, unplugging the router?

geronimofinch

It's installed since January on the 3mb service which is when I got the router. It's only since last Tuesday I attempted to upgrade to the 10mb.

It's impossible for me to plug the modem straight into the pc as the pc is upstairs and the modem downstairs due to the phoneline connection. Never had any problem with the 3mb line but if I'm paying for 10mb I would like to see 10mb.

Tea_Bag

i understand, but that doesnt rule out the router wireless as being unable to hold more than 3mb.

can you borrow a laptop from someone?

geronimofinch

Thanks for your help, Tea_Bag. I can try and get a loan of a laptop of someone and try the speed on that.

Either way looks like I'll need to stick with 10mb as I was DL too much on the 3mb (max 30gbs) so I would have been automatically upgraded to the next package in any event.

I'm still getting average dl speeds with torrent 280kb/s, however, speed tests performed have never gone over 3mb.

Tea_Bag

if you can't get hold of a laptop, but can borrow a router, you could try that. but you really need a latop or pc plugged straight into the modem and not into a router.

geronimofinch

Still waiting on the lend of a laptop to test, however, in the meantime Chorus have got back to me informing that it is a router problem and to contact Netgear - even gave me the phone number to ring them. I imagine if it was a router problem surely I could download some fix or update for it to allow the 10mb?

donal.hunt

it might be a router issue but I'm able to get 10/1 down/up through the stock UPC router so I'll discount it for now.

What you need to realise is that your machine's connection to the internet looks something like this:

[general internet] <----> [upc network] <----> [upc modem] <----> [wireless router] <----> [your PC]

example image: http://www.microsoft.com/library/media/1033/windowsxp/images/using/networking/setup/68573-router-diagram.gif

note: The internet part of the above image can be broken up into the part of the network UPC owns and the part they don't (e.g. other ISPs / internet backbone providers / etc). The router can be wired or wireless.

UPC's speeds are for the link between [upc network] and [upc modem] (which is in your house). If you measure speeds with the wireless router in the mix, you don't know if it's the wireless router causing the issue or the link between your modem and the UPC network.

the general steps for diagnosing are:

• reduce the setup to the simplest solution (no wireless router, laptop/PC connected directly to cable modem)
• if everything is working with the simplest solution, then it's one of the components not in use. if there is still an issue then it's either your PC (get another PC / laptop to rule that out) or the service provided by UPC.
• if you determine it's the wireless router, it's usually one of 2-3 things... 1) too many WiFi routers on the same channel nearby (solution: choose a different channel in the router config) 2) old software on the router (solution: update it). 3) busted router (solution: buy a new one)

Hope it helps...

Get0fix

geronimofinch wrote: »

It's a netgear router wireless. Not DL anything and no updates taking place.

Well you definately have been upgraded to the 10mb package because your upload speed has increased to almost 1mb.

Check the connection via cable as suggested. If you can try another router, even better! Those netgears seem to give alot of problems, I have been through 3 or 4 of them, as they all had various issues.

Do you know what speed your wireless adapter is running at? If you're running XP you can check this by running the mouse pointer over the wireless icon in the taskbar. For the connection to run at 10Mb/s you'd want a data rate of at least 24 or 36 I'd say.

Lenny

well, don't bother ringing the netgear support, its in india.. and they'll blame NTL
you just need to get a good wireless router(n series if your computer supports)
your net gear is ****

DingDong

Lenny wrote: »

well, don't bother ringing the netgear support, its in india.. and they'll blame NTL
you just need to get a good wireless router(n series if your computer supports)
your net gear is ****

I know people always slate the netgear wgr614 but I always managed to get around 18Mb on speedtest, granted when I moved a room or two away it dropped to about 13-14Mb. Since changing to the netgear WRN2000 it goes that little bit further 19.5Mb.

DECEiFER

Try power cycling your modem (not your router) and it might sync correctly to the new speeds, and whilst doing so, leave it unplugged for 10-30 seconds. It's quite common for this to remedy such issues regarding cable broadband.

If that doesn't work. Power your modem down and rest it for 5-30 minutes.

geronimofinch

Power cycling the modem? I'm intrigued. Could you perhaps explain how you'd actually do that?

Still no joy and got what I expected. NTL blaming the Netgear router and Netgear blaming NTL.

When I hover the cursor over the wireless network logo in the task bar it ranges from between 12mb right upto 54mbs but this can't possibly be correct as any speed test I've run never go over 3mbs.

Get0fix

geronimofinch wrote: »

Power cycling the modem? I'm intrigued. Could you perhaps explain how you'd actually do that?

Still no joy and got what I expected. NTL blaming the Netgear router and Netgear blaming NTL.

When I hover the cursor over the wireless network logo in the task bar it ranges from between 12mb right upto 54mbs but this can't possibly be correct as any speed test I've run never go over 3mbs.

By "power cycle" he means just unplug it, wait for 10-30 seconds, and then plug it back in (power-off then power-on basically)

Leaving the MODEM off for 30 minutes or so is a pretty good idea. Now that I think about it, I'm sure I was told to leave mine off for an hour or so after NTL did my upgrade.

geronimofinch

Yeah, I've unplugged the modem about a thousand times at this stage but I haven't left it off very long so perhaps I'll leave it off overnight and see what happens.

What's the worst that could happen, eh?

DingDong

Have you connected to the modem directly?. You have the correct upload for 10Mb. So I guess your problem is either contention, router or your wireless adaptor. Also it could be your pc limiting the connection. If you connect directly you can rule out most of them

geronimofinch

Well tried again this AM and it's gone up to 4.5mbs. Prior to this it had never gone over 3mb and sometimes was struggling to get even 1mb so it seems it could be on the move upwards at last.

Plugging the modem directly into the PC isn't really and option for me. Too much hassle.

_Sidhe_

You're going to need to make sure that you're running the most recent firmware and if so to reset your router.

Open up your router page.
(Type 192.168.1.1 into the address bar in your browser and press enter.
It'll ask for a username and password. username : admin password : password)

If you've never gone to this page before it'll start searching for updates automatically.

If it finds one download it.

Reboot modem and router for 30 seconds afterwards, and then test your speed.

If that doesn't work you will have to reset the router.
Let me kow and I'll tell you what to do.


I've used the Netgear WGR plenty of times and nevr had a problem getting full speeds up to 20 MB and was often downloading at 2MB + a second wirelessly.

geronimofinch

_Sidhe_, perhaps I'm going about this firmware upgrade all wrong, and I have tried before also, but anytime I attempt to upload the .chk file I've just downloaded from Netgear I get an invalid file name error - a voila (attachment).

I've tried changing the name of the file but same error crops up.

_Sidhe_

geronimofinch wrote: »

_Sidhe_, perhaps I'm going about this firmware upgrade all wrong, and I have tried before also, but anytime I attempt to upload the .chk file I've just downloaded from Netgear I get an invalid file name error - a voila (attachment).

I've tried changing the name of the file but same error crops up.

That's strange.
Never seen that myself.
Go to Netgears website (www.netgear.com) try and download it from their support section instead, see if you get the same issue.

Your router does seem to be running on the old firmware though, so there's a good chance that this is causing the slow speed.

If you still can't install the update from the site, you should try and reset the router back to factory settings.
That might enable you to download the update.