[Internet] Help: download speed x navigation speed

[AllieYess]

Hello all, I'm hoping to get some help with an issue with my internet. For a month or two I've been dealing with so much slowness navigating. Sites won't fully open (or at all) before a good number of refreshes, on any browser. My download speed remains the same it always was (1mb) and upload speed seems unaffected as well. I have no idea why I'm experiencing such difficulty browsing websites.

I use a 56mbps router but even if I connect the internet modem straight to the computer it still happens. But I figured the problem shouldn't be the router because my download speed is ok (I do know my router is outdated though, I'll buy a better one soon).

So, would anybody have an idea what's going on? It's really infuriating having to refresh a page 3 or 4 times before it loads properly. It makes visiting sites like MFC and SM a hell, really. Any help will be extremely appreciated.

 

[Fay_Galore]

Are other programms/applications on your computer slow too? then you might need to clean up your harddrive. You could check your CPU to see what is taken up a lot of 'energy' from your processor.
other option is that you might have stored a lot of data, cookies and history in your browsers making them slower. you can remove these quite easily. (depending on your browser there should be a 'clean up' or 'remove browser history' button somehere, you can pick what you want to keep)

(1mb download speed is not a lot by the way, especially now that a lot of sites expect people to have faster internet and require a lot of data to be downloaded, 1mb is also a bit thin for broadcasting/camming too, are you not experiencing problems with that?)

 

[GweenBlack]

My internet is 60 Mb download and 3 MB upload. It is not so much but it the best package i can afford at the moment (for the 10 mb upload it would be double what i pay right now and it is already too high)

To stream in HD you need at least 2 MB upload, when my up speed gets under that it gets choppy.

Could you do a speedtest.net and post your results in here?

 

[Jesse0328]

Have you tried calling your internet service provider to rule out any issues with your connection? One megabit down is kind of slow these days, but you shouldn't be experiencing that much stalling unless every site you go to is media rich.

It wouldn't hurt to download and run a program called Malwarebytes to see if there's a "virus" (that term is overused) or something like that in the background affecting your browsing.

 

[AllieYess]

Are other programms/applications on your computer slow too? then you might need to clean up your harddrive. You could check your CPU to see what is taken up a lot of 'energy' from your processor.
other option is that you might have stored a lot of data, cookies and history in your browsers making them slower. you can remove these quite easily. (depending on your browser there should be a 'clean up' or 'remove browser history' button somehere, you can pick what you want to keep)

(1mb download speed is not a lot by the way, especially now that a lot of sites expect people to have faster internet and require a lot of data to be downloaded, 1mb is also a bit thin for broadcasting/camming too, are you not experiencing problems with that?)

I formatted my computer not even a month ago, and I haven't even reinstalled all the programs I used to have, only some essential ones. I perform disk defragmentations at least every week too, and I run an all-around scanner for all kinds of problems. Maybe it isn't doing its job very well, but it never shows me any issues. I'm a really OCD person with my computer so I keep it "squeaky clean" and organized.

I know that 1mb isn't a lot but I've never had a problem like this before even with the same speed. Which's why I really don't understand what's making my navigation so terrible. I haven't cammed in weeks but when I did I didn't have any problems either.

My internet is 60 Mb download and 3 MB upload. It is not so much but it the best package i can afford at the moment (for the 10 mb upload it would be double what i pay right now and it is already too high)

To stream in HD you need at least 2 MB upload, when my up speed gets under that it gets choppy.

Could you do a speedtest.net and post your results in here?

Do you actually get to download stuff at 60mbps or is it 6? Because that's how it works with providers here, both with Speedy and NET. You sign up for a 10mb, like mine is, and get a dl speed of 1mb and an upload of pretty much the same speed. Which's why I said my dl speed is 1mb, because it's what I actually get from my 10mb contract.

I can stream in HD on SM, but I haven't tried it on MFC. In any case, that's not really the issue here. The problem is my navigation speed which's been sucking balls for no apparent reason. I can't open any page properly without having to refresh it several times, and it's making me crazy. ><

Have you tried calling your internet service provider to rule out any issues with your connection? One megabit down is kind of slow these days, but you shouldn't be experiencing that much stalling unless every site you go to is media rich.

It wouldn't hurt to download and run a program called Malwarebytes to see if there's a "virus" (that term is overused) or something like that in the background affecting your browsing.

Every time I contact them, they tell me to perform a speedtest and the result is always the same because like I said, my download speed is unaffected by whatever is making my navigation so crappy. So they tell me they can't do anything about it. 1mb is far from an ideal speed but I've had even slower internet speed before and never experienced this. So I really have no idea what's going on.

I use Advanced System Care for all kinds of pc protection and cleaning, but I'll try that one as well and see if it makes a difference. I'm praying it does because this is just awfully frustrating ray:

 

[GweenBlack]

My internet is 60 Mb download and 3 MB upload. It is not so much but it the best package i can afford at the moment (for the 10 mb upload it would be double what i pay right now and it is already too high)

To stream in HD you need at least 2 MB upload, when my up speed gets under that it gets choppy.

Could you do a speedtest.net and post your results in here?

Do you actually get to download stuff at 60mbps or is it 6? Because that's how it works with providers here, both with Speedy and NET. You sign up for a 10mb, like mine is, and get a dl speed of 1mb and an upload of pretty much the same speed. Which's why I said my dl speed is 1mb, because it's what I actually get from my 10mb contract.

I can stream in HD on SM, but I haven't tried it on MFC. In any case, that's not really the issue here. The problem is my navigation speed which's been sucking balls for no apparent reason. I can't open any page properly without having to refresh it several times, and it's making me crazy. ><

I download things at 11-12 mb/s which is ridiculous fast. Connection doesnt work like it, it depends on the server you are downloading from and your connection as well.

Your download you pay, 10mb (no capital letter) is megabit. Your download is 1MB (megaBYTE - capital letter). They are different things.

What you need for camming is the upload. Also, try setting your DNS server into automatic, maybe the one your are using isnt compatible for the websites you are trying to access.

 

[AllieYess]

I download things at 11-12 mb/s which is ridiculous fast. Connection doesnt work like it, it depends on the server you are downloading from and your connection as well.

Your download you pay, 10mb (no capital letter) is megabit. Your download is 1MB (megaBYTE - capital letter). They are different things.

What you need for camming is the upload. Also, try setting your DNS server into automatic, maybe the one your are using isnt compatible for the websites you are trying to access.

Yep, I know. But NET themselves inform us at the moment of the installation that 1mb is what we get when we sign a 10mb contract, which's why they refuse to do something about my navigation problems. A torrent with lots of seeds will download at full speed, 1~1,2mb, whereas downloading from a limiting server will get me a 300~400kbps at most.

NET requires that your DNS is set to automatic so that's not the problem I'm having, I guess, otherwise I wouldn't be able to connect to the internet at all. And once again, camming is not the problem haha I haven't even been camming. My problem is navigating.

 

[weirdbr]

This is going to be a bit long - I tend to get verbose when it's about the area I work in

Yep, I know. But NET themselves inform us at the moment of the installation that 1mb is what we get when we sign a 10mb contract, which's why they refuse to do something about my navigation problems. A torrent with lots of seeds will download at full speed, 1~1,2mb, whereas downloading from a limiting server will get me a 300~400kbps at most.

The issue of units here is important. If the contract you signed is for 10Mbps (mega*bits* per second), you can be expected to get up to 1MB/s (MegaBytes per second) [if we're being pedantic - it's actually 1.25MB/s] in the best case. If your speed test is giving you 1MB/s, then they are doing (in theory) their part of the contract.

Now, there's two things to keep in mind:
- When running the speedtest, make sure to select a server other than the one that is auto-selected. This is extremely important because Ookla (the company behind speedtest) has their servers installed on ISPs all over the world in exchange for bandwidth. As a result, when you test using that local server the results are really inflated - they will be measuring only the capacity of the 'last mile' (as it is called in the business) instead of the whole path to the rest of the world, hiding the fact that most ISPs have upstream connections that usually are severely oversubscribed.
- even if the ISP doesn't have a severely oversubscribed upstream connection, your download speed is also limited by the upstream connectivity of the site being used, as well as the congestion of the whole path between you and that site, so it makes testing very difficult.

And to add to the fun.. There's always the possibility that your ISP is actively throttling HTTP connections; it doesn't make a lot of sense to do that and leave torrents untouched, but I've seen ISPs do a lot of stupid things...

NET requires that your DNS is set to automatic so that's not the problem I'm having, I guess, otherwise I wouldn't be able to connect to the internet at all. And once again, camming is not the problem haha I haven't even been camming. My problem is navigating.

Unless your ISP is doing something really odd for authentication (like having a homepage that you need to login to enable the connection and that page is only accessible from inside their network), there's no real requirement to use the ISP's DNS servers - all that ISPs frequently require is that you have the computer(s) set to use DHCP to get an IP address and default route, but you can override the DNS servers (I recommend Google DNS [8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4], but there's also OpenDNS which some people like).

In fact, I would strongly suggest avoiding your ISP's DNS servers - in my work, I've seen ISPs from all over the world both intentionally or accidentally breaking their DNS servers, leading to slowing down their users. And given the name of the ISPs you mentioned, if the NET you mention is the one I am thinking of, it really wouldn't surprise me if they have screwed up their DNS servers again.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

Just to make it clearer for everyone could you do a speedtest.net and then at the end click on Share Results.

Then click on the Image tab and hit copy.

Then just paste that link here, like this.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/3697887385.png
So we can see something like this for your test.

 

[AllieYess]

This is going to be a bit long - I tend to get verbose when it's about the area I work in

I would have thanked your post a hundred times if possible! Thank you for laying out all the technicalities for me. I'll respond accordingly.

Yep, I know. But NET themselves inform us at the moment of the installation that 1mb is what we get when we sign a 10mb contract, which's why they refuse to do something about my navigation problems. A torrent with lots of seeds will download at full speed, 1~1,2mb, whereas downloading from a limiting server will get me a 300~400kbps at most.

The issue of units here is important. If the contract you signed is for 10Mbps (mega*bits* per second), you can be expected to get up to 1MB/s (MegaBytes per second) [if we're being pedantic - it's actually 1.25MB/s] in the best case. If your speed test is giving you 1MB/s, then they are doing (in theory) their part of the contract.

The contract is indeed for 10Mbps. I understand that Mb and MB are different things but I usually don't get too technical about it lol Everybody knows what it is like with internet providers around here (I believe you're BR too, right?). I didn't bring it up because like I said, the promised download speed is being delivered.

Now, there's two things to keep in mind:
- When running the speedtest, make sure to select a server other than the one that is auto-selected. This is extremely important because Ookla (the company behind speedtest) has their servers installed on ISPs all over the world in exchange for bandwidth. As a result, when you test using that local server the results are really inflated - they will be measuring only the capacity of the 'last mile' (as it is called in the business) instead of the whole path to the rest of the world, hiding the fact that most ISPs have upstream connections that usually are severely oversubscribed.

I didn't know all of this, but always when I run the speedtest I do it on every server available, and sometimes I'd get huge differences on the results. Lately I haven't done it because I don't think it's relevant to the problem I'm having, since my downloads are fine.

- even if the ISP doesn't have a severely oversubscribed upstream connection, your download speed is also limited by the upstream connectivity of the site being used, as well as the congestion of the whole path between you and that site, so it makes testing very difficult.

Yeah well, about that I have no idea

And to add to the fun.. There's always the possibility that your ISP is actively throttling HTTP connections; it doesn't make a lot of sense to do that and leave torrents untouched, but I've seen ISPs do a lot of stupid things...

Also got no clue about whether this might be happening or not ;;

NET requires that your DNS is set to automatic so that's not the problem I'm having, I guess, otherwise I wouldn't be able to connect to the internet at all. And once again, camming is not the problem haha I haven't even been camming. My problem is navigating.

Unless your ISP is doing something really odd for authentication (like having a homepage that you need to login to enable the connection and that page is only accessible from inside their network), there's no real requirement to use the ISP's DNS servers - all that ISPs frequently require is that you have the computer(s) set to use DHCP to get an IP address and default route, but you can override the DNS servers (I recommend Google DNS [8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4], but there's also OpenDNS which some people like).

In fact, I would strongly suggest avoiding your ISP's DNS servers - in my work, I've seen ISPs from all over the world both intentionally or accidentally breaking their DNS servers, leading to slowing down their users. And given the name of the ISPs you mentioned, if the NET you mention is the one I am thinking of, it really wouldn't surprise me if they have screwed up their DNS servers again.

It probably is the NET you're thinking of XD I don't know how to fix this because apparently you can't change the settings if you want to connect at all....

 

[GweenBlack]

(this is the post with the most brazilians interacting in this forum and it makes me smile :lol:

e claro que tem a ver com a NET

sorry, keep going.)

 

[AllieYess]

(this is the post with the most brazilians interacting in this forum and it makes me smile :lol:

e claro que tem a ver com a NET

sorry, keep going.)

T___T SPEEDY IS SO MUCH BETTER if only I could get it.

Just to make it clearer for everyone could you do a speedtest.net and then at the end click on Share Results.

Then click on the Image tab and hit copy.

Then just paste that link here, like this.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/3697887385.png
So we can see something like this for your test.

Here it is

 

[GweenBlack]

(this is the post with the most brazilians interacting in this forum and it makes me smile :lol:

e claro que tem a ver com a NET

sorry, keep going.)

T___T SPEEDY IS SO MUCH BETTER if only I could get it.

Just to make it clearer for everyone could you do a speedtest.net and then at the end click on Share Results.

Then click on the Image tab and hit copy.

Then just paste that link here, like this.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/3697887385.png
So we can see something like this for your test.

Here it is

mine is a 60down/3Up plan here is my result

 

[weirdbr]

The contract is indeed for 10Mbps. I understand that Mb and MB are different things but I usually don't get too technical about it lol Everybody knows what it is like with internet providers around here (I believe you're BR too, right?). I didn't bring it up because like I said, the promised download speed is being delivered.

Cool; usually most people don't know the difference and from there comes all the confusion. Gotta love the network (and storage) people using bits when everyone else in the planet cares about bytes....

(And yep, I'm brazilian, but I live abroad now. I didnt explicitly mention the country when replying to you because I didn't see it on your mfc profile so preferred to err on the side of caution)

- even if the ISP doesn't have a severely oversubscribed upstream connection, your download speed is also limited by the upstream connectivity of the site being used, as well as the congestion of the whole path between you and that site, so it makes testing very difficult.

Yeah well, about that I have no idea

Well, for this type of test, I recommend trying downloading from the more famous sites (Google, apple, universities, UOL, etc), so you know they have large pipes and shouldn't be limited.

And to add to the fun.. There's always the possibility that your ISP is actively throttling HTTP connections; it doesn't make a lot of sense to do that and leave torrents untouched, but I've seen ISPs do a lot of stupid things...

Also got no clue about whether this might be happening or not ;;

Well, as far as I know, Net doesn't do any throttling (at least actively). Their horrible speeds are results of lack of investment in infrastructure and proper configurations.

It probably is the NET you're thinking of XD I don't know how to fix this because apparently you can't change the settings if you want to connect at all....

Well, give it a try - follow the steps in https://tecnoblog.net/2152/deixar-inter ... a-opendns/ and use 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 instead of the ones they show on the article. I tried to look in the Net website how their stuff works.. But it's broken for me (how fitting :lol: )

 

[AllieYess]

Well, give it a try - follow the steps in https://tecnoblog.net/2152/deixar-inter ... a-opendns/ and use 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 instead of the ones they show on the article. I tried to look in the Net website how their stuff works.. But it's broken for me (how fitting :lol: )

Will try that right now! BBL with the results :handgestures-salute:

 

[AllieYess]

Well, give it a try - follow the steps in https://tecnoblog.net/2152/deixar-inter ... a-opendns/ and use 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 instead of the ones they show on the article. I tried to look in the Net website how their stuff works.. But it's broken for me (how fitting :lol: )

Will try that right now! BBL with the results :handgestures-salute:

Can't edit anymore so double post it is!

I think it didn't really work At least not for sites I don't usually open, therefore I don't have their cache stored. I tried to open a simple site like terra.com.br more than a minute ago and to this moment it hasn't loaded, like, at all (blank page). However, I just started a download from a pure link and it's fine, 1MB and up. Gosh this is so freaking frustrating. I just want to be able to open websites like any normal person with a broadband connection, is that too much to ask...

There's something else I'd like to ask you, if it isn't too much of a hassle. I'm trying to run speedtest on all the servers they offer me (oh Terra finally opened). They're from 4 different hosts. With the exception of one, I haven't been able to complete the test on any of them. The download test gets stuck at the very end and just doesn't finish (I've waited up to 10 minutes for it). Would you happen to know why the hell this might be happening?

I swear this is making me so hopeless, I'm almost telling myself to resign to it.

 

[weirdbr]

Can't edit anymore so double post it is!

I think it didn't really work At least not for sites I don't usually open, therefore I don't have their cache stored. I tried to open a simple site like terra.com.br more than a minute ago and to this moment it hasn't loaded, like, at all (blank page). However, I just started a download from a pure link and it's fine, 1MB and up.

What do you mean by a pure link? If it was a link with an IP address (such as http://10.0.0.1/some_url) then indeed it shows it didn't work, but if it had a domain name the DNS resolution in theory was still working.

There's something else I'd like to ask you, if it isn't too much of a hassle. I'm trying to run speedtest on all the servers they offer me (oh Terra finally opened). They're from 4 different hosts. With the exception of one, I haven't been able to complete the test on any of them. The download test gets stuck at the very end and just doesn't finish (I've waited up to 10 minutes for it). Would you happen to know why the hell this might be happening?

I can think of two possibilities - one is a pain in the ass to test in windows (they hide this setting quite a bit from a quick search) and the other is easier. So for the easy one, you can run the command prompt (execute 'cmd' in the 'run' window), then run 'ping -n 100 http://www.terra.com.br' (try with different sites as well) and in the end it will give you some statistics, include loss percentage. In case you get packet loss, save that data and send to NET as proof that their stuff is broken).

 

[MrRodry]

Você tem alguma extensão/add-on estranha nos teus browsers? Talvez o problema esteja nos teus navegadores.

 

[GweenBlack]

Você tem alguma extensão/add-on estranha nos teus browsers? Talvez o problema esteja nos teus navegadores.

O guardião itaú do navegador é um cu. Ele trava toda hora minhas abas no chrome, eu fico com ele desativo e só ativo pra pagar as contas e depois desativo.

Pode ser isso mesmo, PetitGatinha, dá uma olhada nas suas extensões.

Tem outro computador na casa pra testar? Wifi do celular etc?

 

[JerryBoBerry]

Você tem alguma extensão/add-on estranha nos teus browsers? Talvez o problema esteja nos teus navegadores.

O guardião itaú do navegador é um cu. Ele trava toda hora minhas abas no chrome, eu fico com ele desativo e só ativo pra pagar as contas e depois desativo.

Pode ser isso mesmo, PetitGatinha, dá uma olhada nas suas extensões.

Tem outro computador na casa pra testar? Wifi do celular etc?

I'm not sure, but I think you may have broken google translate gween.

 

[Nordling]

Speaking of connection speed...and sorry for the necro-posting... Has anyone tried the speed test on a site called:

http://www.scanmyspeed.com/

I'm getting WILDLY inaccurate results...which also varies by whatever browser I'm using. With Chrome it says about 50Mbps download, but with Safari, it usually will say about 80Mbps. All other sites with speed tests give me in the neighborhood of 10-13Mbps, which I believe is about right. And one attempt registered 1500Mbps! I asked a friend
to try it and her results were close to normal...so why am I getting these bizarre results on that one site? Oh, and my upload speed registers about right.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

Speaking of connection speed...and sorry for the necro-posting... Has anyone tried the speed test on a site called:

http://www.scanmyspeed.com/

I'm getting WILDLY inaccurate results...which also varies by whatever browser I'm using. With Chrome it says about 50Mbps download, but with Safari, it usually will say about 80Mbps. All other sites with speed tests give me in the neighborhood of 10-13Mbps, which I believe is about right. And one attempt registered 1500Mbps! I asked a friend
to try it and her results were close to normal...so why am I getting these bizarre results on that one site? Oh, and my upload speed registers about right.

Are you using a vpn when you're checking the speeds?

 

[Nordling]

Speaking of connection speed...and sorry for the necro-posting... Has anyone tried the speed test on a site called:

http://www.scanmyspeed.com/

I'm getting WILDLY inaccurate results...which also varies by whatever browser I'm using. With Chrome it says about 50Mbps download, but with Safari, it usually will say about 80Mbps. All other sites with speed tests give me in the neighborhood of 10-13Mbps, which I believe is about right. And one attempt registered 1500Mbps! I asked a friend
to try it and her results were close to normal...so why am I getting these bizarre results on that one site? Oh, and my upload speed registers about right.

Are you using a vpn when you're checking the speeds?

No, not anything like that.

 

[ramblin]

Speaking of connection speed...and sorry for the necro-posting... Has anyone tried the speed test on a site called:

http://www.scanmyspeed.com/

I'm getting WILDLY inaccurate results...which also varies by whatever browser I'm using. With Chrome it says about 50Mbps download, but with Safari, it usually will say about 80Mbps. All other sites with speed tests give me in the neighborhood of 10-13Mbps, which I believe is about right. And one attempt registered 1500Mbps! I asked a friend
to try it and her results were close to normal...so why am I getting these bizarre results on that one site? Oh, and my upload speed registers about right.

For me they're generally coming in a little low - showing 90-95Mbps down, 8.5Mbps vs usual 125x12 on other sites.

Possible reasons for massively inflated numbers could be if the content they're downloading for the test was highly compressible and your ISP or VPN provider was compressing it for you, or if their content was being cached.

 

[Nordling]

Speaking of connection speed...and sorry for the necro-posting... Has anyone tried the speed test on a site called:

http://www.scanmyspeed.com/

I'm getting WILDLY inaccurate results...which also varies by whatever browser I'm using. With Chrome it says about 50Mbps download, but with Safari, it usually will say about 80Mbps. All other sites with speed tests give me in the neighborhood of 10-13Mbps, which I believe is about right. And one attempt registered 1500Mbps! I asked a friend
to try it and her results were close to normal...so why am I getting these bizarre results on that one site? Oh, and my upload speed registers about right.

For me they're generally coming in a little low - showing 90-95Mbps down, 8.5Mbps vs usual 125x12 on other sites.

Possible reasons for massively inflated numbers could be if the content they're downloading for the test was highly compressible and your ISP or VPN provider was compressing it for you, or if their content was being cached.

Possible... but then why do all other sites reflect normal, accurate information?

 

[ramblin]

Possible... but then why do all other sites reflect normal, accurate information?

Because they don't suck?

Speedtests are only as good as the coder that made the speed test and the server they're using. In the best case they should download completely random (and thus uncompressible) content from a very fast server and use different filenames for the content to bypass any provider caching. The best results will also come from a server geographically near you.

I recommend http://www.speedtest.net/ by Ookla.

 

[Nordling]

Possible... but then why do all other sites reflect normal, accurate information?

Because they don't suck?

Speedtests are only as good as the coder that made the speed test and the server they're using. In the best case they should download completely random (and thus uncompressible) content from a very fast server and use different filenames for the content to bypass any provider caching. The best results will also come from a server geographically near you.

I recommend http://www.speedtest.net/ by Ookla.

Yes, Ookla is what I use when I want good information. I only posted to this thread because I was curious about SMS's really bizarre results...results that aren't even consistent with itself. Just a web curiosity I guess. lol Plus it's very pretty.