[SOLVED] Cant seem to get near my full download speed..

[HydroDynamixx]

Hello. I am pretty new to this stuff, but I can dig through settings and such with some guidance. With that being said, I have a problem.

I am paying for 200mb internet download speed through Mediacom. I have a CM600 modem, and two google mesh routers. One router is hardlined to my computer through ethernet, and the other is in the living room with the TV/game systems.
When I am actively downloading something through steam or Uplay (or whatever else), I get between 5 - 15 mbps. I am paying for 200.. WTF. I bought my own hardware in hopes of seeing better speeds, but apparently that was not the case. I am quite frustrated by this, and really dont know where to go from here.

The computer is new, and the motherboard supports much higher speeds than this.
My ethernet cables are: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00T987Z7U/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Everything is brand new. And I am just confused. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Also worth mentioning.. I have having these issues on the ethernet connected computer. I am not sure if these problems persist on the wireless connection.

Thanks TsHw crew.

 

[kanewolf]

Start by trying a "regular" ethernet cable. The wire gauge in the wire you listed is very small. Get a standard cat5e round cable and retest.

 

[HydroDynamixx]

Start by trying a "regular" ethernet cable. The wire gauge in the wire you listed is very small. Get a standard cat5e round cable and retest.

Okay, I will and update here

 

[DSzymborski]

Also, make sure that you're not using MB/s and Mb/s interchangeably. Steam, as far as I know, will express download speed in megabytes per second while your ISP will express download speed in megabits per second.

 

[HydroDynamixx]

Okay so after changing to a normal cat.5e cable, and making sure I wasn't confusing megabytes with megabits (which I was), it looks like I am paying for 200 megabits and I am getting around 60ish megabits per second. So that sounds better, but still not near what I'm paying for.. any other suggestions.. I have tried rebooting the whole network and shortening the length of cable as well. All to minimum benefit..

 

[kanewolf]

Okay so after changing to a normal cat.5e cable, and making sure I wasn't confusing megabytes with megabits (which I was), it looks like I am paying for 200 megabits and I am getting around 60ish megabits per second. So that sounds better, but still not near what I'm paying for.. any other suggestions.. I have tried rebooting the whole network and shortening the length of cable as well. All to minimum benefit..

Did you change the cable from your router to the modem also or is it still thin wire?

Does your motherboard have killer brand network hardware?

 

[HydroDynamixx]

Did you change the cable from your router to the modem also or is it still thin wire?

Does your motherboard have killer brand network hardware?

Okay so you may have saved the day. I completely forgot about the cable between my modem and router, I only changed the cable between router and computer. So after this change, I am getting 260Mbps. If this lasts then this problem is solved.

If anything worsens I will update. THANK YOU OH POWERFUL ONES 🥰😁😁😁😁😁

 

[HydroDynamixx]

Okay, so. This may have been short lived. Right after I switched out the old cables to the cat.5e cables I was soaring at 260Mbps right? Well now, the download I tested on is finished, and with this download I am trying now, it is very inconsistent, It was sitting around 60mbps, then I walked away from the computer for a minute, and it is now around 150mbps then two minutes later I am around 90mbps? Mind you, I was not surfing the web or doing anything but looking at the download number on Steam. Its like my internet is shy. 🤐😵😪🤕 How strange..

 

[McKeu]

Internet speed may vary, normally the ISPs put that also in their terms of use. Depending on your location, you might end up having 150 Mbit, although you pay for 200 and that is totally in an acceptable frame.
And steam especially goes up and down for me, too, and I have a 1Gbit connection. Sometimes it even stops completely for a good minute. But that is just steam, everything else is unaffected. Don't use steam as a speed test for your internet, as it is too unstable. Use a dedicated site for that, for example https://www.speedtest.net/ (be sure to close anything that uses internet connection, also secondary computers and device being online, before doing the test, for best results).
And be aware, as was already mentioned: Mbit per second (the number you pay for) does not equal MByte per second (steams download indicator). With a 200 Mbit connection you will probably end up having 15 to 20 MByte per second download speed in an ideal case.

 

[HydroDynamixx]

Internet speed may vary, normally the ISPs put that also in their terms of use. Depending on your location, you might end up having 150 Mbit, although you pay for 200 and that is totally in an acceptable frame.
And steam especially goes up and down for me, too, and I have a 1Gbit connection. Sometimes it even stops completely for a good minute. But that is just steam, everything else is unaffected. Don't use steam as a speed test for your internet, as it is too unstable. Use a dedicated site for that, for example https://www.speedtest.net/ (be sure to close anything that uses internet connection, also secondary computers and device being online, before doing the test, for best results).
And be aware, as was already mentioned: Mbit per second (the number you pay for) does not equal MByte per second (steams download indicator). With a 200 Mbit connection you will probably end up having 15 to 20 MByte per second download speed in an ideal case.

This is helpful. Thank you! 😁

 

[AllanGH]

An additional factor to consider is TCP overhead cost.

Typically, Ethernet MTU is set at 1500 Bytes, the TCP header is 20 Bytes, and the fixed part of your IPv4 header is 20 Bytes. This gives you 1460 Bytes of data and 40 Bytes of overhead.

Then you need to add 40 Bytes to 14 Bytes (Ethernet), and 4 Bytes (FCS), and 12 Bytes (Interframe gap), and 8 Bytes (preamble) to get 78 Bytes Overhead.

78 / 1460 * 100 gives you an overhead of 5.34%

Throughput / Goodput = 1460 / ( 1460 + 78) * 100 = 94.93%

At 200 mb/s, you'll realize a maximum theoretical maximum of:
200000000 b/s * 0.9493 = 189860000 b/s = 189.86 mb/s.

If you are able to configure for jumbo packets (9k), then you can increase your 200 mb/s theoretical maximum to 99.14%:
200000000 b/s * 0.9914 = 198280000 b/s = 198.28 mb/s.

None of this will improve losses due to network congestion, data transmission errors, or slow server response, though; so, don't stress-out over it.

 

[kanewolf]

If you are able to configure for jumbo packets (9k), then you can increase your 200 mb/s theoretical maximum to 99.14%:
200000000 b/s * 0.9914 = 198280000 b/s = 198.28 mb/s.

None of this will improve losses due to network congestion, data transmission errors, or slow server response, though; so, don't stress-out over it.

Jumbo frames has ZERO relevance to WAN traffic. WAN MTU is going to be standard size for every ISP that I am aware of.

 

[bill001g]

I agree on the jumbo frame that it means nothing on a WAN but this brought up the question is the problem lan or wan. If you were to set jumbo frames up incorrectly you can get a mess on the lan...but this in this case it is not the issue.

Since there is some strange cabling involved maybe testing lan transfers would be best before you try to troubleshoot a wan issue.

I would first try to transfer files between 2 machines on your lan. Best if both are connected via the ethernet. Watch the network tab in the event monitor. Be aware some value on that screen are bytes/sec and other are bits/sec. You can also load a old line mode program called IPERF. This is a very simple program that only test the network part of machines. It is not really affected by cpu/memory/disk so it is a good test to eliminate or prove a network issue. You should on gigabit connections get well over 900mbps with this tool.