Please verify my speed settings

[theman1971]

Hi - I'm new here. I've been spending the last several days tweaking my DSL connection. Initially, my speed was around 136kbps/245kbps. Currently, it's much more, but still not near the 90% mark of cap.

I've set the NIC to 100BaseT full-duplex since I'm using a router.
Uninstalled ZoneAlarm and is using Sygate.
Ran AdAware6.0 + Spybot S&D.
Installed and ran SpywareBlaster.
Used the live calculator for my current CableNuts ccs.

I'm all out of ideas of what to tweak. Can you guys please take a look at my settings ?

1. DSL router PPPoE
2. SBC Yahoo 1500/256 caps
3. See below.
4. WinXP Home

TCP options string = 020405ac0103030101010402
MTU = 1492
MTU is optimized for PPoE DSL broadband. If not, consider raising MTU to 1500 for optimal throughput.
MSS = 1452
MSS is optimized for PPPoE DSL broadband. If not, consider raising MTU to 1500 for maximum throughput.

Default Receive Window (RWIN) = 75504
RWIN Scaling (RFC1323) = 1 bits (scale factor of 2)
Unscaled Receive Window = 37752
RWIN is not fully optimized (even though it is a comparatively large number). The unscaled RWIN value is lower than it should be, which can affect your connection to some servers. Also, RWIN being close above 65535 does not justify the header overhead of scaling. You might want to use one of our recommended RWIN values below.

RWIN is a multiple of MSS
Other values for RWIN that might work well with your current MTU/MSS:
511104 (MSS x 44 * scale factor of 8)
255552 (MSS x 44 * scale factor of 4)
127776 (MSS x 44 * scale factor of 2)
63888 (MSS x 44)
bandwidth * delay product:

Your RcvWindow limits you to: 3020.16 kbps (377.52 KBytes/s) @ 200ms
Your RcvWindow limits you to: 1208.064 kbps (151.008 KBytes/s) @ 500ms
MTU Discovery (RFC1191) = ON
Time to live left = 57 hops

TTL value is ok.
Timestamps (RFC1323) = OFF
Selective Acknowledgements (RFC2018) = ON
IP type of service field (RFC1349) = 11100000

Precedence (priority) = 000 (routine)
Delay = 0 (normal delay)
Throughput = 0 (normal throughput)
Reliability = 1 (high reliability)
Cost = 1 (low cost)

Thank you!

[mnosteele52]

Welcome to Speedguide theman1971:D, what did you input for your maximum latency?

:cool:

[theman1971]

Thanks for the welcome! I've been reading the forums and I gotta say you and a couple others are doing a hell of a job helping everyone who comes on here.

Now that the a$$-kissing is done... onto the issue at hand. :D

For max latency, I put in 392ms. Here's how I arrived at that number: while downloading that huge 44MB file, I did a tracert to www.dvdtalk.com (one of my fav sites to surf to).

Speed test to New Jersey NAC.NET = 1031/245.
Speed test to Chicago Speakeasy.net (I'm in Chicagoland btw) = 1300/150.

I'm not sure if I should be benchmarking using the closest server, like Chicago Speakeasy.net, or go for the farthest one away like California or something.

I noted the upstream speed decrease when hitting the Chicago server. So much is focused on the downstream speed, so I'm not sure what to tweak for the upstream.

[mnosteele52]

Thanks for the compliment:D. Those are the correct settings, but try and change the following and see if it helps:

GlobalMaxTcpWindowSize = 63888
Tcp1323Opts = 0
TcpWindowSize = 63888

Sometimes when your TcpWindowSize is just barely over 65535 and you need to enable WindowsScaling to use the larger value it actually makes things a bit worse.

The thing with DSL is that it has a MUCH higher latency under a load than cable so your TcpWindow needs to be a bit higher. In any case you can also try 37752 for your value as well and see if it helps.

:cool:

[theman1971]

Thanks! Will test out those values and report back tonite.

[MadDoctor]

Originally posted by theman1971

Now that the a$$-kissing is done... onto the issue at hand. :D
My kind of guy!

Welcome to Speed Guide!

[theman1971]

Thanks MadDoctor! Like your avatar! :D

Btw, when you guys do your speed tests, do you typically test with against a server that is far from you or the closest one to your location? I mean, if I take my results from the test to the Speakeasy.net in Chicago, I'd be like "whoopie!!! 1300!" and focus on tweaking the upload speed. But if I use the results from Joisey, I'd be tweaking for the download speed.

What do you guys use? Do you average a bunch of tests from all different locations?

[mnosteele52]

The best way is to use mutiple tests from different locations. I suggest using FTP tests since they are more accurate.

The flaw with using only the closest server to you is that you have a fewer amount of hops (servers) to go through thus it's not as accurate as "real world" performance since you actually web surf and download files from all over the world.

:cool:

[theman1971]

Originally posted by theman1971
Thanks! Will test out those values and report back tonite.

With the following settings obtained from the optimum configuration of TCP Optimizer, results of the speed test from downloading that aol file is ~162KB/s = ~1300000bps.

Should I be happy with this? What do you guys think?

TCP options string = 020405ac0103030201010402
MTU = 1492
MTU is optimized for PPoE DSL broadband. If not, consider raising MTU to 1500 for optimal throughput.
MSS = 1452
MSS is optimized for PPPoE DSL broadband. If not, consider raising MTU to 1500 for maximum throughput.

Default Receive Window (RWIN) = 255552
RWIN Scaling (RFC1323) = 2 bits (scale factor of 4)
Unscaled Receive Window = 63888

RWIN is a multiple of MSS
Other values for RWIN that might work well with your current MTU/MSS:
511104 (MSS x 44 * scale factor of 8)
127776 (MSS x 44 * scale factor of 2)
63888 (MSS x 44)
bandwidth * delay product:

Your RcvWindow limits you to: 10222.08 kbps (1277.76 KBytes/s) @ 200ms
Your RcvWindow limits you to: 4088.832 kbps (511.104 KBytes/s) @ 500ms
MTU Discovery (RFC1191) = ON
Time to live left = 58 hops

TTL value is ok.
Timestamps (RFC1323) = OFF
Selective Acknowledgements (RFC2018) = ON
IP type of service field (RFC1349) = 11100000

Precedence (priority) = 000 (routine)
Delay = 0 (normal delay)
Throughput = 0 (normal throughput)
Reliability = 1 (high reliability)
Cost = 1 (low cost)

[mccoffee]

Originally posted by mnosteele52
Thanks for the compliment:D. Those are the correct settings, but try and change the following and see if it helps:

GlobalMaxTcpWindowSize = 63888
Tcp1323Opts = 0
TcpWindowSize = 63888

Sometimes when your TcpWindowSize is just barely over 65535 and you need to enable WindowsScaling to use the larger value it actually makes things a bit worse.

The thing with DSL is that it has a MUCH higher latency under a load than cable so your TcpWindow needs to be a bit higher. In any case you can also try 37752 for your value as well and see if it helps.

:cool:

Use thease settings I think 1.3 is ur max

[mnosteele52]

Originally posted by mccoffee
Use thease settings I think 1.3 is ur max

DITTO, why are you using an RWIN of 255552? That is WAY too high for your connection, use the settings I posted above for you.

:cool:

[theman1971]

I tried your setting and it bumped my speed up a little bit. I just happened to run the TCP Optimizer and tell it to set for optimum settings for DSL (PPPoE) and it set the RWIN at 255552. So I just left it there.

I'll change it back to your recommended settings and retest.

What's odd to me is that if I do the speed tests from dslreports.com to various servers, the average result is less than 450kbp/s or 56KB/s. Doing the speedtest via downloading files, the speed is around 155KB - 165KB. This is more inline of the 1.3mbp/s that I'm expecting.

Do you guys know why there's such a large discrepancy?

Thanks!