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Unusually low incoming bandwith.
Digito
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, for roughly a week to a week and a half or so my internet has been acting very unusual. All my downloads are extremely slow and basically EVERYTHING lags, right down to chatting on AIM and playing on a MUD. However upon trying to identify what the problem is, I've noticed several very strange things.
First off, my ability to upload files, send them to other people, so on so forth? It's fine. It's fast, stable, works like it always did. My ability to download files on the other hand is severely crippled. Nothing seems to have a very easy time exceeding 20-30 kb/s (though I've seen it happen, rarely). So maybe it's the connection, right?
Doesn't look like it, my mother uses the same physical connection I do (We use a hub to take one incoming physical cable and split it to the two computers, though we do not use a router and we have two seperate IP addresses from Road Runner.) and her speeds are fine. We could both take turns downloading the same file from the same place, she'll get 450 kb/s and I'll get 21 kb/s. Curiously, even if I'm running multiple downloads at once they ALL can go that fast, so it's not that my total bandwith can't exceed that. I could be using 200 kilobytes a second from several different downloads and it wouldn't make a difference. Furthermore, I looked at my internet connections from the Windows XP Control Pannel, and it's not reporting any unusual data usage incoming or outgoing, so it's not something just plain sucking up all my bandwith. Obviously the problem is something else.
However I'm having a hell of a time figuring out just what that problem actually is, I even tried using Knoppix briefly and my net was just as poor through Knoppix as it was through Windows, which rules out any sort of virus/spyware/something screwed up with the settings. Though to be sure I did scan this system like crazy, and everything's come up fine.
So uhm... does anybody have any ideas as to what might be up, or what I could do to figure out what the problem is? Because I'm completely stumped, and while the net isn't bad to the point of being COMPLETELY unusuable, it's severe enough to make online gaming difficult and the perpetual lag isn't much fun either, because I know my net should be much much faster than this.
First off, my ability to upload files, send them to other people, so on so forth? It's fine. It's fast, stable, works like it always did. My ability to download files on the other hand is severely crippled. Nothing seems to have a very easy time exceeding 20-30 kb/s (though I've seen it happen, rarely). So maybe it's the connection, right?
Doesn't look like it, my mother uses the same physical connection I do (We use a hub to take one incoming physical cable and split it to the two computers, though we do not use a router and we have two seperate IP addresses from Road Runner.) and her speeds are fine. We could both take turns downloading the same file from the same place, she'll get 450 kb/s and I'll get 21 kb/s. Curiously, even if I'm running multiple downloads at once they ALL can go that fast, so it's not that my total bandwith can't exceed that. I could be using 200 kilobytes a second from several different downloads and it wouldn't make a difference. Furthermore, I looked at my internet connections from the Windows XP Control Pannel, and it's not reporting any unusual data usage incoming or outgoing, so it's not something just plain sucking up all my bandwith. Obviously the problem is something else.
However I'm having a hell of a time figuring out just what that problem actually is, I even tried using Knoppix briefly and my net was just as poor through Knoppix as it was through Windows, which rules out any sort of virus/spyware/something screwed up with the settings. Though to be sure I did scan this system like crazy, and everything's come up fine.
So uhm... does anybody have any ideas as to what might be up, or what I could do to figure out what the problem is? Because I'm completely stumped, and while the net isn't bad to the point of being COMPLETELY unusuable, it's severe enough to make online gaming difficult and the perpetual lag isn't much fun either, because I know my net should be much much faster than this.
Digito on
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I'd call them up and see why they've limited you, because from the symptoms it's almost certain that's what happened.
Like JHunz said, this really sounds like ISP throttling. It could be you've passed a bandwidth usage soft cap, or RoadRunner may be using deep packet inspection gear. If they are and you're torrenting, it may be that they're flagging your account and throttling you for a specified time period. Note that DPI will be able to detect torrent traffic even if you use a custom port and have torrent encryption enabled, and the throttling would continue for some length of time after detection, even if you stop your torrent application. The only way to know for sure is to call RoadRunner and ask them.
For the record we have only one modem, but we use a hub. We're going to try hooking up my computer directly to the modem to rule out any third party hardware, then call Road Runner and simply tell them that the net is going really slowly for some reason, my mom doesn't want to specifically ask them if they're throttling because she's a very heavy user of Bittorrent and doesn't want to draw attention if that IS why I got throttled.
I think she just might be a bit paranoid, but... that'll still hopefully get us some answers. I'll be back with how that goes later today.
EDIT: Yay typos.
So, I'd have posted sooner but some family drama came up, long story. Since then we've contacted Road Runner and grilled them a bit, and they said everything checks out as clear on their end. I'm pretty sure if we had a throttle they wouldn't be telling us everything is fine.
Then, for lack of anything else to try, we swapped ethernet cables. Didn't change a thing.
... so, uhm... what else? I truely and honestly can't think of anything else, and this is really beginning to get on my nerves.
Also, if you know how to do it, fire up Linux again and change the MAC address on your ethernet port (Seriously, you can do this in some Linux distros with ifconfig). If the ISP is doing something on a per-computer basis, it will be based on the MAC, and changing the MAC will make the ISP see it as a different computer.
But is there anything I should know in advance about what I'm looking for in a card, or anything that could complicate changing it, like drivers or anything? And exactly how much money am I looking at here? I AM rather strapped for cash right at the moment, so I'd like to avoid pouring much more money into this rather outdated machine if I could, being as I'm trying to save up for a new computer. (that however is still quite a ways out, and I'd certainly like my net to work properly on this one while I wait.)
Now unless dusting out my computer would magically fix my internet, and there wasn't much dust to begin with, nor was my Ethernet port very dusty... looks like it WAS a throttle all along. My net just started working fine again today, basically two weeks after it first started to go to crap.
But WOULD dust cause the strange issues I've had with my internet? Either that or Road Runner can flat out lie to you about if you're being throttled or not. Either way, it looks like this one is sorta solved for now, although I'd very much like to know what slowed my net down in the first place. Was it dust, or was it really a throttle and the ISP doesn't have to tell you if you're being throttled or not?