fast speed test but slow browsing

[alvo]

Hi,

I have relatively fast internet (max 20 Mbps) and if I do a speed test the results are not bad (below you see some results). I live in Madrid, Spain and my ISP is ORANGE.

However, my browsing experience can be very slow.
For examples:

• often pages time out
• downloading attachment from Gmail is very slow
  
  • when things go fine: ~150...200 KB/sec
  • very often: ~20...40 KB/sec
• downloading videos from CNN
  
  • when things go fine: ~500...800 KB/sec
  • very often: ~30...50 KB/sec

I suspect the problem is on my side but I do not know how to pinpoint it. I had similar issues in the past... a complete reinstall of XP did the trick but I am looking for a permanent and less aggressive solution.

I have:
- XP Professional (SP2)
- Firefox 2.0.0.9 (in IE the problem seems to be the same but I didn't experiment much with it)
- ZoneAlarm FREE (but even if it is disabled it makes no difference.)
- ASUS A8N SLI PREMIUM with on-board network card
- SpeedTouch 585 ADSL modem/router (connected to PC by cable not WiFi)

I've been experimenting with TCPOptimizer (the speed test results below show different settings) but doesn't seem to solve the problem even if, in general, it positively affects the speed test results.

I observed that most of the time just after restarting my PC the speed is OK. However as I keep surfing things starts to slow down very quickly (e.g. downloading from Gmail as I mentioned above).

How can I find where the bottleneck is?

I'd appreciate any ideas how to find what causes this slow down.

Thanks

Alvo


Some of the results from www_speedtest_net:

[trogers]

Post your TCP Analyzer report.

I would recommend getting a router and uninstall Zone Alarm.

[alvo]

Hi Trogers,

Thank you for your reply.

My ADSL modem is a router as well. Or you meant that a separate router would be better?

If ZoneAlarm can be the problem, what firewall you'd recommend me to use?

My current TCP settings are the one that TCP Optimizer has adjusted for the speed of 20000 kbps. Here is the report of TCP Analyzer:

« SpeedGuide.net TCP Analyzer Results »
Tested on: 11.04.2007 03:06
IP address: 85.49.xxx.xxx

TCP options string: 020405ac0103030401010402
MSS: 1452
MTU: 1492
TCP Window: 1045440 (multiple of MSS)
RWIN Scaling: 4
Unscaled RWIN : 65340
Reccomended RWINs: 63888, 127776, 255552, 511104
BDP limit (200ms): 41818kbps (5227KBytes/s)
BDP limit (500ms): 16727kbps (2091KBytes/s)
MTU Discovery: ON
TTL: 43
Timestamps: OFF
SACKs: ON
IP ToS: 00000000 (0)


Thank you.

Alvo

[trogers]

Uninstall Zone Alarm and clean your registry with CCleaner.

Then try the following with TCP Optimizer:

General Settings tab:
Custom settings - check
Modify All Network Adapters - check
network adapter selection - your NIC
MTU 1492
TTL - 64
TCP Receive Window - 511104
MTU Discovery - Yes
Black Hole Detect - No
Selective Acks - Yes
Max Duplicate ACKs - 2
TCP 1323 Options:
Windows Scaling - checked
Timestamps - uncheck

Advanced Settings tab:
Max Connections per Server - 10
Max Connections per 1.0 Server - 20
LocalPriority - 1
Host Priority - 1
DNSPriority - 1
NetbtPriority - 1
Lan Browsing speedup - optimized
QoS: NonBestEffortLimit - 0
ToS: DisableUserTOSSetting - 0
ToS: DefaultTOSValue - 80
MaxNegativeCacheTtl - 0
NetFailureCacheTime - 0
NegativeSOACache Time - 0
LAN Request Buffer Size - 32768
Then select "Apply Changes" and reboot to take effect

Reboot comp and test download and browsing speeds.

You usually do not need to use a software firewall when you are connected through a router. Do a tracert to www.yahoo.com and make sure the IP address at the first hop is in the format 192.168.xx.xx

But if you want added security, you can use the free personal firewall Comodo in place of Zone Alarm.

[alvo]

Trogers,

Thank you for the very detailed answer.

I've got rid off ZoneAlarm and enabled the firewall in my router.
I've done all the other steps you recommended and now most of the things go fine in IE. There are still sites that I cannot display (or just extremely slowly) even if they seem to work better when I try to access them through the VPN of my university in the UK.

With Firefox things are not so great. I will check my add-ons. Some of them might affect the speed.

My tracert result:
Tracing route to www.yahoo-ht3.akadns.net [87.248.113.14]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 35 ms 99 ms 115 ms dsldevice.lan [192.168.0.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * 22 ms 23 ms 62.36.173.129
4 22 ms 21 ms 23 ms 62.36.204.181
5 23 ms 23 ms 21 ms 62.36.203.206
6 22 ms 21 ms 21 ms ge-2-3-0-0.madcr2.Madrid.opentransit.net [193.251.251.253]
7 22 ms 24 ms 23 ms po10-0.madbb2.Madrid.opentransit.net [193.251.241.29]
8 22 ms 23 ms 22 ms ae0-72.mad40.ip.tiscali.net [213.200.71.137]
9 61 ms 59 ms 60 ms so-0-0-0.dub20.ip.tiscali.net [213.200.80.42]
10 71 ms 59 ms 60 ms so-0-0-0.dub20.ip.tiscali.net [213.200.80.42]
11 71 ms 69 ms 70 ms yahoo-overture-gw2.dub20.ip.tiscali.net [213.200.67.202]
12 70 ms 68 ms 68 ms ge-1-4.bas-b1.ird.yahoo.com [87.248.101.13]
13 70 ms 70 ms 68 ms f1.us.www.vip.ird.yahoo.com [87.248.113.14]



Thanks.

Alvo

[alvo]

I've drawn conclusions far too quickly. Even in IE gmail can be terribly slow...
It can even happen that at the same time it is fast in Firefox and slow in IE or vica versa.

Anyway, thanks for all the help.

Alvo

[Sava700]

make sure to clean spyware from computer if you have any..

also might try to reinstall IE7 then repair winsock

[trogers]

My tracert result:
Tracing route to www.yahoo-ht3.akadns.net [87.248.113.14]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 35 ms 99 ms 115 ms dsldevice.lan [192.168.0.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * 22 ms 23 ms 62.36.173.129
4 22 ms 21 ms 23 ms 62.36.204.181
5 23 ms 23 ms 21 ms 62.36.203.206
6 22 ms 21 ms 21 ms ge-2-3-0-0.madcr2.Madrid.opentransit.net [193.251.251.253]

Very high and uneven ping times at the router in hop 1.

I suspect there is a bad cable between your comp and the router or if it is wireless, electronic interference to the signals.

[alvo]

Hi,

Thanks for your posts.

No spyware. Still with IE6... didn't feel motivated enough to upgrade.
Maybe I'll give it a try now...

I guess a faulty cable can be an explanation to the randomness of my problem.
I'll check with WiFi to see if any better.

Thanks!

Alvo