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Rikkitic

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#180573 14-Sep-2015 11:09
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OK, now I'm really confused and would greatly appreciate any insights. First, my setup: I'm on 4G wireless RBI, Huawei gateway device upstairs with laptop in next room connected at the moment via Ethernet cable about three metres long. Another 30 metre cable runs through the house to feed a TP Link router. At this end we use wi-fi. The cables are cat 5 something, I think cat 5e.  

Although I have a fair bit of general computer knowledge, I don't have much network experience and don't know much about it. When I run Speedtest, I consistently get a ping of around 56 - 60, download 30 mb/s, upload around 20 mb/s. 

Having recently heard that some people can get up to 70 mb/s with 4G, I became curious as to whether our setup was doing everything it might be capable of so I decided to run a quick comparison test. I took a new laptop and ran Speedtest via wi-fi while sitting next to the downstairs router. I got 39 down and 20+ up, slightly better than usual. I then took the same laptop upstairs and ran several tests using a LAN connection. On one of the tests I connected the laptop directly to the Huawei with a new cable about two metres long. All of the LAN tests, including a later one on a different cable, gave the same result: similar ping but around 5mb/s down and nearly the same up. WTF?

After those tests I immediately went back to my first location (downstairs next to the TP Link router) and did the test again via wi-fi. I got the same result as earlier, 39 mb/s down and over 20 mb/s up. So apparently the wi-fi fed by LAN is significantly faster than a direct LAN connection. This doesn't seem to make sense, at least not to me. Can anyone with more knowledge explain this? What am I actually measuring with those tests? Can it be that my laptop just has a slow LAN port? I can't make sense of these findings.

 






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jonb
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  #1387087 14-Sep-2015 11:16
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Sounds strange.  Would be good to isolate the issue, as it all seems to be on internal network.  Transfer a 100MB file between different devices, on and off wi-fi or the LAN cable and see what happens?



Rikkitic

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  #1387128 14-Sep-2015 12:32
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I ran the test again with my desktop on the LAN cable and I get the same result as the laptop on wi-fi, 39 down, 18 up. There must be something wrong with the LAN port on the laptop. I can't think of any other reason for this. It sure doesn't help when your test tools are also faulty.





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linw
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  #1387148 14-Sep-2015 13:36
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Check the wired Network device Advanced setting under Device Manager and see what speed/duplex it is set to. Usually they are set to Automatic but worth checking.



Rikkitic

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  #1387207 14-Sep-2015 14:31
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This is really weird. I did check the speed/duplex setting and it is set to automatic. Then I had the bright idea to rerun the tests with the two computers side by side, both plugged into the same LAN cable. The desktop came back with ping 41 ms (the best ever, usually it's closer to 60), 40.26 mb/s down (a record, usually closer to 30), 19.35 mb/s up, also very high. The laptop gave me 41 ms ping (the same, again very good), 6.31 mb/s down (!), 21.08 mb/s up (!!!). That is the highest upload speed I have ever seen. It is also the first time ever that the upload was faster than the download. I have no idea what to make of this.





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Dairyxox
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  #1387211 14-Sep-2015 14:40
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You haven't ever set bandwidth control in the router have you?

You always seem to have weird issues like this and they're usually your own doing, it's like you know just enough to be dangerous (remember when you blocked Google domains in the host file then couldn't complete captchas)

Rikkitic

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  #1387380 14-Sep-2015 18:42
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Yeah, I do sometimes wonder. But I haven't touched any of those settings precisely because I don't know what they do. Everything is as it came from the provider. When I set up the D-link the only thing I did was set the password. I haven't touched anything in the Huawei. I think the reason my issues are always weird is because I don't mention the non-weird ones that I can fix myself.
 





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webwat
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  #1392969 23-Sep-2015 18:56
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I agree with you, the laptop sounds like its got a faulty LAN port. You aren't using a USB to Ethernet dongle or anything? Also worth checking that its not a faulty port on the switch.




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raytaylor
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  #1392993 23-Sep-2015 19:18
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Also your provider might be using a bursting allocation - you are given a burst of higher speed for a few seconds to allow your video to buffer, then it slows your speed down a bit for fair network access.
A speed test transfers a large amount of data in a short amount of time. Not all providers use bursting for evening out bandwidth but it could be something to look into.

TBH if you are getting 30mbits, you are not going to notice much of a difference for anything faster. The point of diminishing return is actually closer to 4mbits for surfing, and 20mbits for torrenting.




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freitasm
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  #1393004 23-Sep-2015 19:26
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Or perhaps the laptop needs a driver update?




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Linuxluver
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  #1393015 23-Sep-2015 19:39
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Rikkitic: OK, now I'm really confused and would greatly appreciate any insights. First, my setup: I'm on 4G wireless RBI, Huawei gateway device upstairs with laptop in next room connected at the moment via Ethernet cable about three metres long. Another 30 metre cable runs through the house to feed a TP Link router. At this end we use wi-fi. The cables are cat 5 something, I think cat 5e.  

Although I have a fair bit of general computer knowledge, I don't have much network experience and don't know much about it. When I run Speedtest, I consistently get a ping of around 56 - 60, download 30 mb/s, upload around 20 mb/s. 

Having recently heard that some people can get up to 70 mb/s with 4G, I became curious as to whether our setup was doing everything it might be capable of so I decided to run a quick comparison test. I took a new laptop and ran Speedtest via wi-fi while sitting next to the downstairs router. I got 39 down and 20+ up, slightly better than usual. I then took the same laptop upstairs and ran several tests using a LAN connection. On one of the tests I connected the laptop directly to the Huawei with a new cable about two metres long. All of the LAN tests, including a later one on a different cable, gave the same result: similar ping but around 5mb/s down and nearly the same up. WTF?

After those tests I immediately went back to my first location (downstairs next to the TP Link router) and did the test again via wi-fi. I got the same result as earlier, 39 mb/s down and over 20 mb/s up. So apparently the wi-fi fed by LAN is significantly faster than a direct LAN connection. This doesn't seem to make sense, at least not to me. Can anyone with more knowledge explain this? What am I actually measuring with those tests? Can it be that my laptop just has a slow LAN port? I can't make sense of these findings.


On my 4G mobile data via Spark, I must ensure Speedtest is looking at the Spark server (via Settings in the Ookla app). Any other server will limit the throughput to 20Mb/30Mb because it has get to that ISP from Spark and back again....and you're at the mercy of the pipe between ISPs, not the speed on the dedicated network of a single provider. On a Spark speedtest server, I can get well over 100Mb near their cell tower in Birkdale. Many times faster than my VDSL connection. If i really want to go fast, I do stuff on my phone. It's much faster than the PC. 





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Rikkitic

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  #1393547 24-Sep-2015 13:49
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Thanks to everybody for your replies. I haven't been on top of this due to bad toothache and inability to get immediate treatment. First, I am not using any kind of dongle. This is the inbuilt LAN port on a new Acer Aspire. Second, don't know about bursting though I would doubt it. I might look into it later with my provider out of curiosity but right now I'm focused on my tooth. Third, I don't think I have a driver issue but how would I know? Laptop is new, came with 8.1 installed, now upgraded (not a clean install) to Win 10. No obvious signs of any issues now or in past. Finally, the ping tests are always Speedtest default. I am in Hawke's Bay but the server is always Dunedin. They seem a bit slow to me but I don't know enough to be sure. I haven't looked  into server settings or tried to change them. ISP is Netspeed which actually means Vodafone. 





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