XANAVirus

Great explanation, CA3LE. Plenty of information to help me understand this. You definitely answered my question and then some. Thanks so much!

Hi, You know how you do a speed test here on TMN, and then you get sent a results page which contains the TiP summary and the max / average speeds of your connection? Well, further down there is the Middle Variance value, which displays in different colors depending on the value it has (red, blue, green, etc.). What I'd like to know is, what does this value represent and what are good values for it to show? Is blue color better than green color, where does this facor in to the results of the tests? Thanks!

Hi Everybody, I was seeing really weird results on my speed tests today on my new Windows 7 Professional VM (as opposed to a physical computer), I got this VM up and running since I wanted to move away from my University's terminal server, which always got reloaded (and my profile and settings reset) at the worst times (random, I guess). So, I set this thing up as follows: Windows 7 Professional 2GB Virtual RAM, 50GB Virtual HDD Paravirtual Network Driver/Card, Bridged w/IPv6 access It's bridged to my home network with a 100Mbit connection, but my home Internet connection only subscribes to 15Mbit/1.5Mbit (sometimes it bursts up to 20Mbit, but I think that's off peak only). These results I'm seeing are way out there. In this picture of my results taken under the VM, you can see the TiP bar being really jumpy at points and I know I don't have anywhere near a 40-to-200+Mbit connection. The less than 1.5Mbit upload is normal, though, since I have multiple devices. But only this device, the VM, can unlock these crazy speeds. So, I was wondering what's up - is this some function of the VM or Oracle Virtualbox that either has which can do something weird like this? Finally, performing speed tests on the VM is certainly not consistent at all; this result shows the average as 70Mbit, but one of my other tests shows the average as like 40Mbit. It's not only visible in speed tests, either - websites load faster than they ever did on one of my physical computers or even any of my other devices like my phone. I didn't perform any TCP optimization on this VM, if you were curious.

So I managed to finally resolve this problem, just now. Apparently, it turns out my router [the Tenda Technologies one] (which I had bought new to replace the one I accidentally fried) actually did have traffic controlling abilities turned on by default. The setting affected the speed, in order to supposedly offer better overall latency or at least that's what the help doc says, which is how it resulted in a stable 3.5Mbps rather than my maximum connection speed like I wanted. I guess it was to control congestion or something, which my network doesn't have any of as far as I know. So, once I turned that off, the latency did become slightly erratic, but I gained the other 12.5Mbps I was missing in TMN speedtests. This had been bugging me for like months now, but finally I solved it.

So, I ran TCP Optimizer, and that didn't change a thing. Download is still stuck at 3.5 / 4Mbps only. The TiP line on the results page barely even deviates from a single solid line, which shows that it's really stable and therefore should be able to use more download speed. I really don't think it's the router, because my WiFi devices (especially Android) can test with either Speedtest.net's app or the TMN browser based test and easily reach 7-8Mbps average (and most of the time it can download up to my max speed). It only appears to be Ethernet clients that are affected by this strictly-limited speed. You, TriRan, said " ... your router will slow all WiFi connections down to that rate while it is connected". Does this apply to Ethernet connections too? My network is made up of 3 WiFi routers, and most devices connect at Wireless N to this router [A] which all my Ethernet clients are connected to, except for the ones that range out of router [A] and instead connect to . [C] provides coverage outside and most of the time it's empty of Wireless clients. I believe the Nintendo 3DS supports Wireless G or N (in addition to Wireless B ), but even so it's actually connected to , so I don't think it is affecting anything about either WiFi or Ethernet. [A] is connected to both and [C] by a 85Mbps Ethernet-over-powerline connector, because my old house doesn't have Ethernet cabling. So, I think those actually connect at only 10Mbps. Even so, that should mean I would be able to get up 10Mbps on all my Ethernet clients, but I don't. EDIT: When I transfer files between Windows computers on router [A], I get around 10-12Mbps download/upload speed, which is pretty consistent with what I was expecting given not all my Ethernet clients connect at 100Mbps. I still don't know why 3.5 /4 Mbps is the strictly enforced speed rate for only my Windows Ethernet computers, or how or where. EDIT 2: When I removed my router from the cable modem connection and plugged my computer in, when I speed tested here I got 8.4Mbps rather than the 3.5Mbps I was seeing - so it must be something to do with my router, I would suppose.

Hi, I've got an idea. Why not let us set identifiers (like 'Home', 'Office', etc.) on our previously-done speed tests? I just found out that you had that feature, and it would make it much easier to separate my home network results from my university results, etc. I've already done plenty of speed tests. I never knew about the feature previously and so all my different connections are just grouped under my results. I can't filter them unless I choose a specific connection ID (which isn't the best of dynamic addresses like mine).

Hi, I am having the weirdest problem with my Windows home PCs. They appear to be strictly limiting themselves to 3.5 / 4Mbps download, even though my download speed is actually 15Mbps. See, my server computer, which is hooked up to the same router, a Tenda Technology Wireless-N router, can fully use the download connection speed all the time, but these computers can't. The speed is incredibly consistent, it *never* goes higher than 4Mbps nor does it ever go any lower than 3Mbps. But, I just can't figure out what is going on, because my other non-Windows computers and routers can use the same connection and same router to the fullest connection speed. Upload speeds are fine, on all my devices I get about 1.3Mbps usually, but it's just these download speeds should be much faster than they are. If I download a big file, like a Linux ISO, using a web browser even then it still stays at a stable 3.5 / 4 Mbps and never goes higher or drops lower. Is Windows doing some sort of rate limiting itself? I'm not rate limiting any on my router, and no way am I pushing either my local network or my 15Mbps cable line to anywhere near its limit.

The ones I use are Level 3 DNS. 209.244.0.3 - resolver1.level3.net 209.244.0.4 - resolver2.level3.net At my home network, these are 30ms quicker response time than Suddenlink's DNS. I also use these on my rooted Androids, like my GS4. It really helps to make Sprint faster (and did the same back when I had AT&T). Response time on Sprint is 20-30ms quicker most of the time (because of the way mobile Internet works, it doesn't provide stable latency). And, on every ISP I've used in my travels on vacation, they're always closer network-wise than the normal servers any of the ISPs I've used have (i.e. AT&T Uverse, Comcast especially, Compu Net, etc.). I really like these servers.

So I ran TCP optimizer on my Windows, and it didn't really boost my speed to that of what Linux was seeing (and still is seeing). But it did do some good, in that it pretty much stabilized my speeds now (they were all over the place before, some days I'd see close to 2 Mbps or as little as less than 512Kbps). I suppose Linux is just in general faster when it comes to network capability, since Windows has to run so much stuff before it boots and during boot - and Linux boots in about a minute and a half while Windows boots in almost 5 minutes. I really really wish it were possible for me to run Linux exclusively; it seems just so great, at least to me (but no, my games aren't supported). (I mean, I'd keep a Windows machine handy for my games, but there are others here with me, who know only Windows and all that.)

When I went to TMN just now, in the Servers section up at the top (where you choose your testing location), the Eastern - and Western, too - servers are all gone. Now the options are the following: Central USA, Automatic Route, Europe, More Servers (?) I click on More Servers to see if maybe you just moved those two I mentioned before in there, but all that's in there is just some public mrrors - the Eastern and Western servers have completely disappeared from the website. Are they down, or did you take them off for whatever reason? They were here yesterday, and I always use the Eastern server because it's routed closer to me (and then I sometimes test with the others to see how I compare).

Sorry about that, I forgot to mention that I do use Firefox, on both Linux and Windows. I don't use one of those hosts file ad-blocker solutions (my hosts file hasn't ever been modified by anything). My hosts file is still unmodified from when Windows was first installed. If there's anything else I forgot, make sure to mention it.

No, I haven't. I'll look into it! What I have tried is using TuneUp Utilies (paid software I paid for, which can do all these neat things - including managing network optimization). That software didn't really produce any significant (or noticeable, for that matter) difference (and it runs on a weekly cylce). Maybe this TCP Optimizer will help some.

I don't get it. Linux speeds through tests like nothing, yet Windows chokes along as if it were limited by design (or so it appears). Linux is even faster today, and it actually went faster than my rated speeds ever did from my connection. Linux actually hit 2Mbps and almost 3, even though my actual speeds are never ever that high from Windows (I subscribe to the 3Mbps tier). See: https://testmy.net/wx3jTSp.FiI6tSc.png It's not fair - Why is Windows (or, as someone put it, Windoze ) just so slow went comes to my connections either at my University or at home on Suddenlink? Linux, hey, I'd totally dump Windows and switch to Linux if I could, just for the fact everything is just *so* much faster in Linux, if my old games from the 1990s actually supported it - and those are all I play on the PC anyway. The Sims, Age of Empires, Civilization - none of those will work well in Linux (I'd have to run a Windows VM). Ah well, these connection speeds are awesome - better than they've ever been, really, and I've been testing for months and months now. Windows has basically been the same, either at home or at my University - slow (at least, connections-wise). I have no other problems with Windows, but what could I do to help out here and get Windows closer to speeds I'm seeing booted into Linux (Mint)?

Well, this was actually one of my slower Winows tests. It usually howers around that or all the way up 1.8Mbps. Testing with Windows has never broken 2Mbps ever, at least in my recent memory. It's really surprising, because Linux is just all around faster using the exact same setup - maybe it really does have to do with booting from a flash drive or something...I honestly don't know. So far I'm really liking Linux Mint, and my class on Linux (it's called Intro to Linux, it covers the commandline interface first and then towards the end we'll be getting into the GUI). Of course it helps that I trialed Linux (Ubuntu) for just fun a couple years back (and it was off and on for at least few months). I was bored, not nessecarily with Windows but just because I wasn't doing anything fun at the time. My hardware is: Dell Insprion 5720 - Laptop Quad Core 2.50GHz CPU 8GB RAM 16GB Flash Drive (Linux), 1TB HDD (Windows & Data) 100Mbps on-board Ethernet 2.4GHz Wireless N My router is a NETGEAR WNR2000v3 running DD-WRT. I don't really know what else to say about my laptop. When I access the Internet, it's using the Ethernet cable - I find that if I try to push alot of data through my router's WiFi connection, it'll kick me off because it nearly locks up, but I have no problems doing the same thing over Ethernet. I leave WiFi off on my computers, and just use the Ethernet connections on everything, it all just works better that way for some reason. Maybe Linux is faster because it uses far less memory or something, than Windows (with Windows, after everything's all booted up I have about half memory left, while Linux uses just 10% memory max - at least so far).

So do other cable companies have 'in house' techs too? Say, Suddenlink? Alot of companies nowadays are outsourcing everything and subcontracting everything to other businesses. This is the first I heard of techs trained by the cable company and not just hired by them to do something for you.