Download Speed is Great, Upload Speed is Bad, Please Help!

[RKayEll]

Okay so I originally had a problem with my internet where I couldn't load pages hardly at all unless I got lucky. I managed to fix that for the most part (I'm not sure how) now pages load more often but only about 30% of the time. The other 70% of the time webpages will not load or take forever to load. Skype messages sometimes take a while to send and according to my friends my voice sounds robotic over Skype calls.

It's probably important to mention that this problem is fairly recent and I have only had it for about a month.

My download speed on Speedtest is great whereas my upload speed is abysmal. 95% of the time I can't even get Speedtest to tell me what my upload speed is. I'm guessing that this is where the problem lies (Can upload speed affect webpages loading and Skype?) This problem is only on my computer however I doubt that it is a problem with my network card because my download speed is fine. (As of writing this Speedtest shows my download speed as 63.20Mbps with a ping of 13ms (Upload speed is unable to be measured).

My Network Card is a Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller.

Please note that I'm not definitely sure that the problem is my upload speed.

EDIT 1: I updated the drivers my Network card and am now updating the drivers for my Motherboard. When I updated the drivers for my Network card everything improved but was still not as good as I would like it (1.11Mbps Upload speed on speed test) I just updated one of my Motherboard drivers and my internet just got bad again, webpages wont load. I'm not sure if that is because of the driver update.

EDIT 2: I wondered if the second driver I installed was an older version of the first, in which case I reinstalled the first one. My internet got better straight away, I can now load webpages. Speedtest still shows upload as pretty appalling though.

 

[samlarz13]

Ok, first of all. Welcome to the lives of most of us in the US. It's extremely rare that US internet service providers offer more than 5mbs up. The good news is that that is plenty for most things (with the occassional exception of people streaming). Web browsing shouldn't be impacted as much by your upload as your download since you're fetching information from the websites' servers. Upload would affect your skype calls and might explain your secret robot identity online 😉 I would contact your service provider and find out how much of an upload speed you're paying for and ask if your router/modem are up to par to handle those speeds. Also make sure that your network card is not bottlenecking your speeds either. That's my advice! Hope you get back to browsing smoothly! 😀

 

[RKayEll]

Ok, first of all. Welcome to the lives of most of us in the US. It's extremely rare that US internet service providers offer more than 5mbs up. The good news is that that is plenty for most things (with the occassional exception of people streaming). Web browsing shouldn't be impacted as much by your upload as your download since you're fetching information from the websites' servers. Upload would affect your skype calls and might explain your secret robot identity online 😉 I would contact your service provider and find out how much of an upload speed you're paying for and ask if your router/modem are up to par to handle those speeds. Also make sure that your network card is not bottlenecking your speeds either. That's my advice! Hope you get back to browsing smoothly! 😀

Well the thing is my internet was running smoothly before so it can't be my network card and the other computers in the house have about 6Mbps upspeed, it's only mine that has a problem. But after updating my drivers the webpages have began to load now yet Speedtest still has a fairly low upspeed.

 

[Eximo]

I've had loss of upload capability while retaining full download capability before. Usually means there is a problem on the ISP's receiving end on the network. Basically they are having trouble 'hearing' your modem's upload attempts and it is being intermittent either due to a cabling problem (copper) or a faulty repeater/receiver on their end (optical) or both.

Simple test is to set up a continuous communication to the internet and back (VOIP server with an open mic works great)

Then fire up resource monitor and set the graph to show upload speed through your NIC. You can watch the upload speed drop to nothing, then resume repeatedly. At least if you have the same problem I did.

 

[RKayEll]

I've had loss of upload capability while retaining full download capability before. Usually means there is a problem on the ISP's receiving end on the network. Basically they are having trouble 'hearing' your modem's upload attempts and it is being intermittent either due to a cabling problem (copper) or a faulty repeater/receiver on their end (optical) or both.

Simple test is to set up a continuous communication to the internet and back (VOIP server with an open mic works great)

Then fire up resource monitor and set the graph to show upload speed through your NIC. You can watch the upload speed drop to nothing, then resume repeatedly. At least if you have the same problem I did.

But that wouldn't explain why it's only my computer which is being affected would it?

 

[Eximo]

Then try another NIC and see if it continues. They aren't exactly expensive.

 

[RKayEll]

Then try another NIC and see if it continues. They aren't exactly expensive.

Any you would recommend?

 

[Eximo]

For this, any PCIe 1x 10/100/1000 card. Most of the cheap ones will be realtek chipsets. You could go for Intel I suppose.

Just disable the onboard NIC in the BIOS to make sure there are no driver confusions.

If you know anyone with a USB wifi stick you could give that a try before spending any money.

 

[Eximo]

Also that doesn't invalidate firing up resource monitor and graphing the NIC's upload speed as it sits. If it isn't fluctuating you probably have a netbot or something consuming all your upload bandwidth.

 

[RKayEll]

For this, any PCIe 1x 10/100/1000 card. Most of the cheap ones will be realtek chipsets. You could go for Intel I suppose.

Just disable the onboard NIC in the BIOS to make sure there are no driver confusions.

If you know anyone with a USB wifi stick you could give that a try before spending any money.

I recently updated my motherboard, do you think that because I haven't disabled an onboard NIC in the BIOS there could be a problem?

 

[RKayEll]

WAIT A SECOND. THIS UPLOAD SPEED. WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT.

EDIT:


It is slowly getting worse though, each time I test it.

 

[Eximo]

When you updated your motherboard, did you re-install the OS or just fire up the system after the replacement?

If you haven't gone to the motherboard manufacturer's site and downloaded all of the drivers for the system, chipset, audio and all of that, you may be experiencing unexpected complications by driver conflict.

Disabling a NIC in the BIOS would make it inoperative, so you definitely haven't done it. And you wouldn't want to unless you are installing another network card to replace it.

 

[RKayEll]

When you updated your motherboard, did you re-install the OS or just fire up the system after the replacement?

If you haven't gone to the motherboard manufacturer's site and downloaded all of the drivers for the system, chipset, audio and all of that, you may be experiencing unexpected complications by driver conflict.

Disabling a NIC in the BIOS would make it inoperative, so you definitely haven't done it. And you wouldn't want to unless you are installing another network card to replace it.

I installed the drivers that were on the disk when it came. My internet did improve though when I went to the website and installed the ethernet classed drivers.

 

[Eximo]

Install ALL of the drivers for your motherboard from the vendor's site. Don't use the disks, they are often packaged several months in advance and can be out of date.