Here's an ineresting take on broadband speed.

I have two identical laptops (toshiba satellite pro 4600's) a single broadband modem(D-link 502T) and a desktop computer. xtra explorer account (3500 kbps).

Using the modem to connect each of the computers to xtra I get different speeds for each of the computers using the nzdsl.co.nz speed test. To do this I simply had them all booted up sitting next to each other and for each test pulled out the cable connecting the modem and plugged it into the next computer and repeated the test. Thus I could do the the test within minutes of each other. Same xtra account, same modem, same phone line, different computer. The results kinda suprised me.

Desktop computer - 1540 kbps downstream 127 kbps upstream.

1st laptop - 1999 kbps downstream 76 kbps upstream

2nd laptop 3084 kbps downstream 131 kbps upstream 

These test are repeatable at all times of the day with one of the laptops clearly giving a better performance than the other computers.

Well, I know which computer I want to connect to the internet with!!! but the question is - "why is one laptop so much faster than all the others????"

All of these computers have been set up the same way, with the xtra cd they sent out with the modem, so why should they be so different.

Can anyone help me solve this? Theoretically the computers should deliver the same speeds so I suspect there may be some settings that are different between the computers.  So often we blame poor lines, house wiring, xtra etc, yet here we can see clearly that the computers we use also have a big influence on speed. Solve this question and it may help a few other people get better speeds.