Sudden drop in speed, nothing works. Help appreciated

[corduroy]

Hi.

Today when I turned on my computer and started downloading a few torrents (private tracker, very well seeded), I noticed that my speed was only about a fourth of what it usually is. I usually download at about 1mb in utorrent, but now I only get to 200-300k. It's not just my torrent client that's configured wrong (I think), when I reach speeds of 200-300k in utorrent, browsing gets extremely slow. This just happened without warning. I've tried a million different settings in TCP Optimizer and no matter what I do, the speed is the same. It's extremely frustrating. It happened a few weeks ago as well and that time I managed to fix it, but not this time.

I have a netgear router and i suppose that the connection is 1mb (The connection was already installed when I moved in). I've tried to connect to the switch in the basement and when that didn't do make any difference, I connected directly to the modem. No change in speed. I have no idea what has happened. Any tips?

MSS: 1460
MTU: 1500
TCP Window: 64240 (multiple of MSS)
RWIN Scaling: 0
Unscaled RWIN : 64240
Reccomended RWINs: 64240, 128480, 256960, 513920
BDP limit (200ms): 2570kbps (321KBytes/s)
BDP limit (500ms): 1028kbps (128KBytes/s)
MTU Discovery: ON
TTL: 51
Timestamps: OFF
SACKs: ON
IP ToS: 00000000 (0)



tracert:
Tracing route to www.yahoo-ht3.akadns.net [69.147.114.210]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 6 ms 9 ms 9 ms gw82.cust.umeaenergi.com [80.244.82.1]
3 6 ms 8 ms 9 ms vl2-cr1-i20-ume.t3.se [80.244.72.65]
4 8 ms 8 ms 11 ms 88-83-32-169.core.t3.se [88.83.32.169]
5 7 ms 9 ms 9 ms 62.119.217.45
6 33 ms 35 ms 35 ms ge-1-2-1.no-oslms001-pe-1.tu.telenor.net [212.10
5.101.174]
7 32 ms 34 ms 33 ms nb03b11-ge3-0.nb.telenor.net [217.70.229.113]
8 118 ms 125 ms 120 ms nb10b11-pos2-2.nb.telenor.net [217.70.227.54]
9 127 ms 131 ms 130 ms nb18b11-pos4-0.nb.telenor.net [217.70.227.38]
10 128 ms 131 ms 131 ms g2-12-bas2.dce.yahoo.com [206.223.115.2]
11 131 ms 131 ms 131 ms ge-3-1-0-p141.msr1.re1.yahoo.com [216.115.108.59
]
12 128 ms 135 ms 130 ms ge-1-42.bas-a1.re3.yahoo.com [66.196.112.195]
13 127 ms 130 ms 131 ms f1.www.vip.re3.yahoo.com [69.147.114.210]

Trace complete.



Thanks.

[corduroy]

Oh yeah. I forgot. I use Win XP SP2 and Bitdefender 10 as a firewall/antivirus. I scanned my system with Spybot, but it told that it found nothing.

[corduroy]

.. one thing that may or may not make a difference is that both times the speed dropped, the power had been cut for a while (when I got home my alarm clock was blinking, so I assume that's what happened). This is likely a coincidence, but who knows? The power has been out before and this only happened twice. I've tried power cycling everything many times.

[trogers]

Check and ensure your torrent client has its global upload speed limited to half of your ISP given speed.

A saturated upload bandwidth will slow download and browsing.

[corduroy]

Ok, that didn't help. Also, I've had the upload setting on 900k for a long time and never had this problem, I've still downloaded at full speed.

My download speed goes up to 260-300 and then just stays there. Is there anything else that might do this? I've patched the tcpip.sys to 50 half open connections and use 30 in utorrent.

[trogers]

Turn off your torrent and reboot comp and modem to get a new IP address. Then, test your upload speed to see if it is normal or otherwise.

[corduroy]

I have a static IP address and I've restarted everything and I've left it off for a night. Nothing happened.

When I do speedtests I get pretty good speed, but when I download stuff in a browser (firefox) or use uTorrent, it just refuses (the speed) to go past 300k. I'm a noob, is there any sort of buffer or cache or something that might get overloaded? i don't get it

http://www.speedtest.net/result/106997903.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

Edit: Just ran another test, and it went even better:

[IMG]http://www.speedtest.net/result/107000455.png (http://www.speedtest.net)[IMG]

[trogers]

Your 2 speed tests were done only 6 mins apart but the latency varied from 30ms to 112ms.

Try testing at this link. When test is completed, click the 'Statistics' button and post the pop-up report:

http://miranda.ctd.anl.gov:7123/

[corduroy]

WEB100 Enabled Statistics:
Checking for Middleboxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Done
running 10s outbound test (client to server) . . . . . 214.43Kb/s
running 10s inbound test (server to client) . . . . . . 349.51kb/s

------ Client System Details ------
OS data: Name = Windows XP, Architecture = x86, Version = 5.1
Java data: Vendor = Sun Microsystems Inc., Version = 1.5.0_11

------ Web100 Detailed Analysis ------
10 Mbps Ethernet link found.
Link set to Full Duplex mode
Information: throughput is limited by other network traffic.
Good network cable(s) found
Normal duplex operation found.

Web100 reports the Round trip time = 255.58 msec; the Packet size = 1460 Bytes; and
No packet loss was observed.
This connection is network limited 99.97% of the time.

Web100 reports TCP negotiated the optional Performance Settings to:
RFC 2018 Selective Acknowledgment: ON
RFC 896 Nagle Algorithm: ON
RFC 3168 Explicit Congestion Notification: OFF
RFC 1323 Time Stamping: OFF
RFC 1323 Window Scaling: ON
Packet size is preserved End-to-End
Server IP addresses are preserved End-to-End
Information: Network Address Translation (NAT) box is modifying the Client's IP address
Server says [80.244.xxx.xxx] but Client says [192.168.xxx.xxx]


Hmm, what does the last part mean? The first ip is my external ip and the second my internal.

This is much slower than my last speedtest, but I live in Sweden, so maybe that's not so strange?

[trogers]

WEB100 Enabled Statistics:
Checking for Middleboxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Done
running 10s outbound test (client to server) . . . . . 214.43Kb/s
running 10s inbound test (server to client) . . . . . . 349.51kb/s

------ Client System Details ------
OS data: Name = Windows XP, Architecture = x86, Version = 5.1
Java data: Vendor = Sun Microsystems Inc., Version = 1.5.0_11

------ Web100 Detailed Analysis ------
10 Mbps Ethernet link found.
Link set to Full Duplex mode
Information: throughput is limited by other network traffic.
Good network cable(s) found
Normal duplex operation found.

Web100 reports the Round trip time = 255.58 msec; the Packet size = 1460 Bytes; and
No packet loss was observed.
This connection is network limited 99.97% of the time.

Web100 reports TCP negotiated the optional Performance Settings to:
RFC 2018 Selective Acknowledgment: ON
RFC 896 Nagle Algorithm: ON
RFC 3168 Explicit Congestion Notification: OFF
RFC 1323 Time Stamping: OFF
RFC 1323 Window Scaling: ON
Packet size is preserved End-to-End
Server IP addresses are preserved End-to-End
Information: Network Address Translation (NAT) box is modifying the Client's IP address
Server says [80.244.xxx.xxx] but Client says [192.168.xxx.xxx]


Hmm, what does the last part mean? The first ip is my external ip and the second my internal.

This is much slower than my last speedtest, but I live in Sweden, so maybe that's not so strange?

The speeds indicated are not so reliable as the test site is in the US.

Scan your comp for possible spyware/malware to make sure throughput is limited by other network traffic is not due to them.

Test does not indicate bad signal quality and round trip time at 255ms is normal from the EU to the US.

Your speed fluctuations may be due to a bad ISP line. Do a tracert to www.yahoo.com to check ping times along the signal route.

[corduroy]

I've scanned it with spybot and ad-aware. The only thing it found was the tcpip.sys patch (EvID4226Patch.exe) that I've applied (I've set it to 40). I didn't remove it. My girlfriend is on her computer using MSN only, maybe that's why it says troughput is limited by other network traffic. But I have the same speed problem when her computer is turned off and even when everything worked fine and she downloaded stuff, I would still get 800-900kB speed.



Tracing route to www.yahoo-ht3.akadns.net [69.147.114.210]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 5 ms 10 ms 9 ms gw82.cust.umeaenergi.com [80.244.82.1]
3 7 ms 9 ms 6 ms vl2-cr1-i20-ume.t3.se [80.244.72.65]
4 10 ms 9 ms 9 ms 88-83-32-169.core.t3.se [88.83.32.169]
5 7 ms 9 ms 16 ms 62.119.217.45
6 32 ms 34 ms 35 ms ge-1-2-1.no-oslms001-pe-1.tu.telenor.net [212.10
5.101.174]
7 34 ms 34 ms 34 ms nb03b11-ge3-0.nb.telenor.net [217.70.229.113]
8 120 ms 181 ms 121 ms nb10b11-pos2-2.nb.telenor.net [217.70.227.54]
9 127 ms 130 ms 126 ms nb18b11-pos4-0.nb.telenor.net [217.70.227.38]
10 128 ms 129 ms 129 ms g2-12-bas2.dce.yahoo.com [206.223.115.2]
11 129 ms 131 ms 130 ms ge-3-1-0-p141.msr1.re1.yahoo.com [216.115.108.59
]
12 130 ms 131 ms 130 ms ge-1-42.bas-a1.re3.yahoo.com [66.196.112.195]
13 129 ms 131 ms 131 ms f1.www.vip.re3.yahoo.com [69.147.114.210]

Trace complete.

[trogers]

I've scanned it with spybot and ad-aware. The only thing it found was the tcpip.sys patch (EvID4226Patch.exe) that I've applied (I've set it to 40). I didn't remove it. My girlfriend is on her computer using MSN only, maybe that's why it says troughput is limited by other network traffic. But I have the same speed problem when her computer is turned off and even when everything worked fine and she downloaded stuff, I would still get 800-900kB speed.



Tracing route to www.yahoo-ht3.akadns.net [69.147.114.210]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 5 ms 10 ms 9 ms gw82.cust.umeaenergi.com [80.244.82.1]
3 7 ms 9 ms 6 ms vl2-cr1-i20-ume.t3.se [80.244.72.65]
4 10 ms 9 ms 9 ms 88-83-32-169.core.t3.se [88.83.32.169]
5 7 ms 9 ms 16 ms 62.119.217.45
6 32 ms 34 ms 35 ms ge-1-2-1.no-oslms001-pe-1.tu.telenor.net [212.10
5.101.174]
7 34 ms 34 ms 34 ms nb03b11-ge3-0.nb.telenor.net [217.70.229.113]
8 120 ms 181 ms 121 ms nb10b11-pos2-2.nb.telenor.net [217.70.227.54]
9 127 ms 130 ms 126 ms nb18b11-pos4-0.nb.telenor.net [217.70.227.38]
10 128 ms 129 ms 129 ms g2-12-bas2.dce.yahoo.com [206.223.115.2]
11 129 ms 131 ms 130 ms ge-3-1-0-p141.msr1.re1.yahoo.com [216.115.108.59
]
12 130 ms 131 ms 130 ms ge-1-42.bas-a1.re3.yahoo.com [66.196.112.195]
13 129 ms 131 ms 131 ms f1.www.vip.re3.yahoo.com [69.147.114.210]

Trace complete.

There are some irregular ping times at hop 2 (your modem) but they may be due to traffic load from the other comp.

The signal route does not indicate any exceptional spikes in ping times except a little at hop 8. But this is at the international gateway and should not affect you to local sites.

Scan for spyware and tune your other comp to ensure it is problem free. If after doing this and your speed is still fluctuating, ask your ISP to do a line test to your comp and see if they can detect any problem along the signal route.

[corduroy]

Ok. Thanks for the help!

[corduroy]

Just another question. I checked with a-sqaured Hijackfree and noticed that utorrent is using 12 ports. Do you know if that's normal?

[trogers]

Just another question. I checked with a-sqaured Hijackfree and noticed that utorrent is using 12 ports. Do you know if that's normal?

Did you disabled UPnP port mapping in your uTorrent? if not, you should.

Follow the tips of this website on setting Static LAN IP addresses in your comps and then port forward your router:

http://www.portforward.com/networking/static-xp.htm
http://www.portforward.com/

[corduroy]

I have a static and I've never used upnp, so that's not it. Everything is forwarded properly. :confused:

[trogers]

Port forward are ports for listening.

But connection ports activated by your utorrent to upload and download can be many multiple ports. My BitComet uses almost 100 ports during simultaneous down and uploading.

[corduroy]

Ok. I'm sorry to have bothered you with this. I called my ISP, the support guy pushed some button or two and now I have 10mbit again... guess I'll try that the next time. :)

Due to all my tweaking and editing, my regsitry settings are probably screwed up, could you take a quick look and see if you find anything strange?

speedtest:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/107617506.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

« SpeedGuide.net TCP Analyzer Results »
Tested on: 04.02.2007 02:23
IP address: 80.244.xx.xxx

TCP options string: 020405b40103030301010402
MSS: 1460
MTU: 1500
TCP Window: 513920 (multiple of MSS)
RWIN Scaling: 3
Unscaled RWIN : 64240
Reccomended RWINs: 64240, 128480, 256960, 513920
BDP limit (200ms): 20557kbps (2570KBytes/s)
BDP limit (500ms): 8223kbps (1028KBytes/s)
MTU Discovery: ON
TTL: 51
Timestamps: OFF
SACKs: ON
IP ToS: 00000000 (0)


Again, thanks for your help.

[trogers]

Ok. I'm sorry to have bothered you with this. I called my ISP, the support guy pushed some button or two and now I have 10mbit again... guess I'll try that the next time. :)

Due to all my tweaking and editing, my regsitry settings are probably screwed up, could you take a quick look and see if you find anything strange?

speedtest:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/107617506.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

« SpeedGuide.net TCP Analyzer Results »
Tested on: 04.02.2007 02:23
IP address: 80.244.xx.xxx

TCP options string: 020405b40103030301010402
MSS: 1460
MTU: 1500
TCP Window: 513920 (multiple of MSS)
RWIN Scaling: 3
Unscaled RWIN : 64240
Reccomended RWINs: 64240, 128480, 256960, 513920
BDP limit (200ms): 20557kbps (2570KBytes/s)
BDP limit (500ms): 8223kbps (1028KBytes/s)
MTU Discovery: ON
TTL: 51
Timestamps: OFF
SACKs: ON
IP ToS: 00000000 (0)


Again, thanks for your help.

Setting looks good for 12-16 mbps bandwidth with max. latency 340-260ms