FallowEarth

The only reliable firewall is a NAT. But as for a software firewall, I am currently using EZ Armor, based on the same True Vector engine as is Zone Alarm. It seems to check out pretty well: Results from scan of ports: 0-1055 0 Ports Open 0 Ports Closed 1056 Ports Stealth --------------------- 1056 Ports Tested ALL PORTS tested were found to be: STEALTH. TruStealth: PASSED - ALL tested ports were STEALTH, - NO unsolicited packets were received, - NO Ping reply (ICMP Echo) was received.

Not as much with download.com, but many sites provide mirrors from which you can download the same software. This allows you to find a server which may be geographically closer to you, or experiencing lighter traffic. Otherwise, download.com is a generally busy site. What you get there, you can 99% of the time get elsewhere on the Internet. Just search google.com for a smaller site that is likely to have less traffic.

You can always try booting into safe mode w/ networking to see if the speeds fluctuate as much as the do in normal mode. If they do, you can pretty much guarantee its on your ISP's end. If they don't,then it's something(s) on your PC.

-25*C here in Ontario today with the wind chill. Brrr..

If you are seeing your cap of 384 Kbps upload currently, then you will likely see the cap if it is 512 Kbps. Think of it this way: is a 33% increase in your upload speed worth the cost?

I don't think that looks too bad. A couple times a day you are getting slower speed, usually during peak traffic hours it looks like. It is possible that the test server is seeing heavy traffic when you are testing. With lower speeds as yours, you will notice the effect much more than if you had cable speeds. My speeds may fluctuate up to 1 Mbps, according to traffic and the time of day. I just retest and they are back to normal. It may also depend on the traffic through the network of your ISP, which you could monitor by traceroute. Or it could be that there is just much more to cause interference during those times of day. You are seeing speeds up to and over your cap, that is definitely a good thing. That they are not as stable as you would like, as long as you are minimizing things from your end, there's not much else you can do other than call up your ISP with the details. But from the looks of things, its not too far from ordinary. Try doing this from the command prompt: netstat -ano This shows you what connections are open on your PC. It also shows the Process ID (PID). If you open your Task Manager, click View, Set Columns, and tick the box for PID, then you will be able to see which running processes may be hogging your bandwidth.

:::.. Download Stats ..::: Connection is:: 5165 Kbps about 5.2 Mbps (tested with 3151 kB) Download Speed is:: 631 kB/s Tested From:: http://www.bafserv.com Test Time:: Bottom Line:: 92X faster than 56K 1MB download in 1.62 sec Diagnosis: Awesome! 20% + : 55.9 % faster than the average for host (cgocable.net) Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-1TQNY0HIU

drifter, are you using NIC or USB?

Can you provide a traceroute? From the command prompt: tracert testmy.net Make sure that you don't have a firewall or any browser extensions running when you are performing a download speed test. You can also try clicking where it says to load without progress bar.

There may be a number of factors to cause that, mainly software on your computer (IM, p2p, firewall, updates, etc.). Since you are in a different continent than the servers, you are also depending on a lot of network/backbone traffic, any variation of which may cause instability on the downstream. Unfortunately, we don't at this time have a server to test from that would be closer to you. All you can do on your end is make sure that you are free of infections, and minimize the startup items and software running on your PC.

http://www.testmy.net/forum/t-2097 After you've done everything else, check out Cablenut.

http://www.tweaksforgeeks.com/IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL.html Looks to be a hardware error. I would guess MOBO (maybe a BIOS upgrade needed), but this article also says CPU overheating or bad RAM.

Lookin real good! So where did RR lose the 1 point?

Not bad, no real network problems...maybe just a touch busy. Looks like you're on DSL in Brazil? What are your advertised speeds?

What's your router? Can you hook your new PC directly to the cable modem? (you should be able to use that same long cable). We should try a direct connection before we configure the router. If the download is still bad with a direct connection, refer to this: http://www.testmy.net/forum/t-2097 If it is ok with a direct connection.... So you use the same type of NIC in both PCs? And when you tried the other PC, you didn't move the long cable at all? OK, must be something set up on the router then...how do you have it configured? (ie. Mac Filtering, DHCP, etc.) I would suggest hitting the reset button on the router to return it to defaults. Turn off wireless and SSID broadcast, don't use MAC filtering or DHCP, and set up a static IP. That would be my suggestion, but play around with the settings.

Thanks for the tip. This is something that many ppl overlook.

Whup, there's your problem. Call up and get a newer one.

Tell them that if they don't come and fix their crappy line, you'll switch to cable.

Since both your and your roommate's PCs are getting slow speeds, I imagine it's your router that's the cause. Have you tried bypassing the router and running a speedtest?

What's also handy: netstat -ano Shows foreign address, port, state, and associated PID. This way you can associate each connection to what process is using it. Bring up the task manager, click View --> Set Columns and then check PID.

My word, look at this....is all that really necessary? Tracing route to testmy.net [67.18.179.85] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 9 ms 8 ms 9 ms 10.70.160.1 2 13 ms 15 ms 14 ms d226-12-69.home.cgocable.net [24.226.12.69] 3 14 ms 13 ms 17 ms cogeco-gw.peer1.net [69.90.37.245] 4 22 ms 28 ms 31 ms OC48POS3-0.mtl-core-b.peer1.net [216.187.68.93] 5 23 ms 27 ms 31 ms OC48POS2-0.tor-core-b.peer1.net [216.187.68.94] 6 36 ms 29 ms 30 ms OC48POS3-0.mtl-core-b.peer1.net [216.187.68.93] 7 30 ms 35 ms 31 ms OC48POS2-0.tor-core-b.peer1.net [216.187.68.94] 8 37 ms 48 ms 37 ms OC48POS3-0.mtl-core-b.peer1.net [216.187.68.93] 9 37 ms 41 ms 36 ms OC48POS2-0.tor-core-b.peer1.net [216.187.68.94] 10 47 ms 47 ms 46 ms OC48POS3-0.mtl-core-b.peer1.net [216.187.68.93] 11 48 ms 46 ms 45 ms OC48POS2-0.tor-core-b.peer1.net [216.187.68.94] 12 53 ms 54 ms 55 ms OC48POS3-0.mtl-core-b.peer1.net [216.187.68.93] 13 54 ms 60 ms 54 ms OC48POS2-0.tor-core-b.peer1.net [216.187.68.94] 14 21 ms 20 ms 21 ms OC48POS5-0.mtl-core-b.peer1.net [65.39.166.174] 15 79 ms 80 ms 97 ms OC48POS5-0.mtl-core-a.peer1.net [65.39.166.173] 16 139 ms 149 ms 149 ms OC48POS5-0.mtl-core-b.peer1.net [65.39.166.74] 17 238 ms 258 ms 278 ms OC48POS5-0.mtl-core-a.peer1.net [65.39.166.73] 18 353 ms 382 ms 422 ms OC48POS5-0.mtl-core-b.peer1.net [65.39.166.74] 19 556 ms 590 ms 624 ms OC48POS5-0.mtl-core-a.peer1.net [65.39.166.73] 20 * 100 ms 102 ms ge-4-1-0.mpr1.ord7.us.mfnx.net [206.223.119.86] 21 50 ms 49 ms 50 ms 85.67-18-179.reverse.theplanet.com [67.18.179.85] Trace complete. Toronto, to Montreal, to Toronto, to Montreal....I'm getting dizzy.

Nothing like ripping your RWIN wide open to get the most out of your connection

Hey there. You can usually track something like this using a traceroute. Use the same site every time, like Testmy.net, and run the traceroute during different times of the day when you get different speeds. Keep a text document with a running tally including the traceroute and time of day, and map it out that way. Doing this, you'll be able to see if it is a network issue. Otherwise, it is likely that something in your house is causing this to happen, like an appliance kicking on or something. Keep in mind that any electrical device (some more so than others) emit an electromagnetic field when running that may interfere with either your cable modem, or the signal in the lines. So keep an eye out. BTW, do you use a router?

Happy B-day boweeeeee