Hello. My name is Alex, and I'm from Mexico.
I'm subscribed to a local ISP called "megacable". They're also a cable TV company, and they use the same connection to give you either cable, internet, or both (tv goes connected straight from the cable; internet is passed via cable modem). My computer has Windows XP Pro, no servicepacks installed, and no software firewall. I ignore if the moden has a router or firewall.
I'm subscribed to their 256 kps plan... they don't say if that's the download speed alone or dl and ul speeds combined. But anyways... before this morning, I was able to download stuff at an average rate of 120 kps. Sometimes more, sometimes less. But then this morning I decided to re-install windows, as an attempt to solve an issue I had with some audio drivers (they're not related to network connections, are they?). My windows cd is too scratched already, so I borrowed one from a friend - I mention this because I'm not sure if it had something to do with my problem -, did the reinstall, and had the computer running again.
Now, the previous times I installed windows with my cd, it recognized the modem and the network cards immediately, and I could start browsing right away at my 120 kps speed. But this time it was different. Downloading stuff, I noticed that the speed never got past 20 kps. I checked connections, windows' network settings, and nothing. Then I'd started looking online for information, and stumbled across this site. I performed some of the tweaks mentioned on other forum threads (and looked for the latest drivers of my network adapter, thinking that the version of windows I installed might have had the wrong ones) and it sort of improved the thing... stressing "sort of". It starts downloading at 200+ kps, and then it drops, and drops, and drops, until it stabilizes somewhere between 25 and 80 kps. Great improvement, but it's still far from what I had it at before the reinstall.
Is it possible that the reinstallation screwed up something?
Here's the latest result from testmy.net's download test:
:::.. Download Stats ..:::
Connection is:: 272 Kbps about 0.3 Mbps (tested with 1013 kB)
Download Speed is:: 33 kB/s
Tested From:: http://www.testmy.net/
Test Time:: Wed Apr 13 2005 20:36:31 GMT-0600 (Central America Standard Time)
Bottom Line:: 5X faster than 56K 1MB download in 31.03 sec
Diagnosis: May need help : running at only 27.5 % of your hosts average (net.mx)
Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-3Z9CSHTUD
Any ideas on what may have caused this speed dropdown? And more importantly, any ideas on how to solve this?
Thanks in advance. Any input will be appreciated.