Question Internet speed is halved on one computer.... but also faster with VPN??!?!

May 27, 2022
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Ok long story short....
Internet speed tested on setup from Ethernet to my laptop ~666Mbps I know, edgy..... but important number
When I change it to my PC, mind you this is a HEDT X399 board and I have confirmed Gigabit handshake with other hardware.... without VPN I get almost exactly 333Mbps, so basically exactly halved..... with VPN on, I get around 425Mbps and I have NEVER gotten more with VPN than without....

I have tested the same cable but not run this way on another [lowend] pc and also got around 666Mbps, I am assuming I have some setting? I read some stuff about DCHP and IPv6 but for router... and obvious DNS did a flush nothing.... But I think I have some setting wrong on this PC, not running anything weird, nothing in background.... The biggest 2 clues IMO are the speed is almost exactly Halved, and it's faster thru VPN, I don't see this being a hardware issue, everything up to the Final EThernet plug is the same(no routers/switches), the Laptop is a fancy gaming one with i7 and 1060 6GB.... if it were hardware VPN wouldn't make it go faster IMO.... really don't want to send back this wire after 2 hours wiring it and get a new one to have to tackle the same issue! HELP!


P.S. SInce then I am getting some different results.... with the non VPN speed on the problem PC going as high as 440/500 nonVPN/VPN..... this is NOT from the source I did checks in between these and it's holding at the normalish PC with half decent parts 6 feet away at steady 700Mbps so now I am scratching me head even more, it is fluxing on the problem PC anywhere between 250-350ish Mbps lower than it shoudl be non VPN and anywhere from 150-250ish Mbps lower than it should be with VPN on..... I enabled IPv6 also AFTER this and no effect seen out of the ordinary flux of speed... so it is no longer ~exactly half non VPN :S

The Ethernet Status of the connection reads as followed

IPv4 Connectivity: Internet
IPv6 Connectivity: No network access
Media State: Enabled
Speed: 1.0 Gbps

Problem PC is running x399 Gaming 7 with integrated Killer E2500 LAN
Laptop is Dell Inspiron 7577 I believe with some quad core i7(no multithreading I screwed up) and I guess some default LAN chip
The work PC next to my Modem is a normal custom $400 work build no GPU just a solid mobo/chip/ram, fairly new

Only the problem PC is having ANY issue

I also have Killer Control center and up/down is set to 1500Mbps each, I had problems with this when I first upgraded being throttled but that doesn't seem to be the case here of some hard throttle..... :S

Halp?

P.S.S. I want to add I have checked task manager while doing the runs, there is not extra traffic on my system, nor were any other devices connected to modem during testing of the system
 
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Here I though we had seen the last of all the "killer" garbage after intel bought them. I assume this is a older board, hopefully intel never sells this junk again. Whenever I was looking for a new motherboard if it said killer it was immediately on my do not buy list.

The whole concept of trying to accelerate certain type of traffic is flawed. It can only affect the traffic inside the machine between application. If you are getting a network bottleneck there you have a massive issue.

In any case your goal is to try to find a driver that does not have the killer features. There used to be hooks in the drivers themselves so you had to do more than just uninstall the control center thing. Not sure where you find this now that intel got them.

Now this is not to say intel is not just as bad. They like to ship similar software based on CFOSspeed that is just as much garbage, but you know gamers will buy anything that says "gamer" on it. At least you just uninstall that software there is no issue with the driver itself.

Note your best tests of network cards and drivers is to use a old program called IPERF. It will let you transfer data between machines in your house and it not affected by things like internet, browsers,etc. I is not even really affected much by the cpu and memory in the machine. It a very simple program that just tests the hardware and the basic drivers. You should see 900+mbps in both directions.
 
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May 27, 2022
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Here I though we had seen the last of all the "killer" garbage after intel bought them. I assume this is a older board, hopefully intel never sells this junk again. Whenever I was looking for a new motherboard if it said killer it was immediately on my do not buy list.

The whole concept of trying to accelerate certain type of traffic is flawed. It can only affect the traffic inside the machine between application. If you are getting a network bottleneck there you have a massive issue.

In any case your goal is to try to find a driver that does not have the killer features. There used to be hooks in the drivers themselves so you had to do more than just uninstall the control center thing. Not sure where you find this now that intel got them.

Now this is not to say intel is not just as bad. They like to ship similar software based on CFOSspeed that is just as much garbage, but you know gamers will buy anything that says "gamer" on it. At least you just uninstall that software there is no issue with the driver itself.

Note your best tests of network cards and drivers is to use a old program called IPERF. It will let you transfer data between machines in your house and it not affected by things like internet, browsers,etc. I am not even really affected much by the cpu and memory in the machine. It a very simple program that just tests the hardware and the basic drivers. You should see 900+mbps in both directions.
lol I won't lie I bought it because it had the most RGB 😄

That last part seems like a great way to figure out if some hardware is just bad, but I am not a network guy and all that LAN stuff was never my forte, can I just hook up computer A to computer B with a single LAN cable and plug and play or do I need some configuration magic on both?

I will try to nuke the drivers and see if I can find something generic... pretty dissapointed that my Netgear "gigabit" router is outputting 300ish Mbps even to my laptop which was getting close to the full 700 Mbps directly, this is with a CAT5e cable inbetween too..... Feels good to have internet so fast it's pushing the limit of technology but this is so dumb, agreed with you on so much on these boards, I have had nightmares with bluetooth chip and trying to get it to run Apt X which intel is too cheap to just purchase licenses for...

All that said and notwithstanding I will try everything you suggested to the best of my ability, the fact remains traffic over VPN is faster than non-vpn, which doesn't even make a lick of sense, leaving me to believe either my system is being targeted for throttle (do they even do that? time to put on my aluminum foil hat) or it's the DNS, is there anything I can do to test if the DNS is somehow just bad, does a DNS even mess with bandwidth..... I will also cross check the setting on my laptop for it's ethernet.... Might spoof my MAC address and user agent and other stuff.... lol
 
May 27, 2022
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Just did a test after checking router doing just under 700 Mbps.... no VPN 335Mbps... with VPN almost 500Mbps, 62+MBps is high but not ~85MBps... I guess for now I am at least getting what I paid for + from my VPN....

Also surprised I bought and paid for "up to 700 Mbps" now my plan says "up to 600Mbps".... I was surprised when I did the test and ~700Mbps was listed at "116%" of what my plan was..... hate these companies so much, cannot wait until my speed goes down to 600Mbps, then ~500Mbps at end of cable won't even be worth troubleshooting anymore, problem fixed ala fraud!
 
May 27, 2022
4
0
10
Here I though we had seen the last of all the "killer" garbage after intel bought them. I assume this is a older board, hopefully intel never sells this junk again. Whenever I was looking for a new motherboard if it said killer it was immediately on my do not buy list.

The whole concept of trying to accelerate certain type of traffic is flawed. It can only affect the traffic inside the machine between application. If you are getting a network bottleneck there you have a massive issue.

In any case your goal is to try to find a driver that does not have the killer features. There used to be hooks in the drivers themselves so you had to do more than just uninstall the control center thing. Not sure where you find this now that intel got them.

Now this is not to say intel is not just as bad. They like to ship similar software based on CFOSspeed that is just as much garbage, but you know gamers will buy anything that says "gamer" on it. At least you just uninstall that software there is no issue with the driver itself.

Note your best tests of network cards and drivers is to use a old program called IPERF. It will let you transfer data between machines in your house and it not affected by things like internet, browsers,etc. I is not even really affected much by the cpu and memory in the machine. It a very simple program that just tests the hardware and the basic drivers. You should see 900+mbps in both directions.
Uninstalled the drivers.... need to be restarted, going to hopefully leave them uninstalled and everything is fine.... I don't like supporting bad companies, thanks for the heads up..... Thinking how I need to finesse my ISP to give me the speed I asked for without having some snarky rep tell me the only option is to end my service, and I cannot believe I just typed that sentence, I remember when I used to tear thru companies like toilet paper with no remorse. I am a tired vet of the fraud wars of conglomerates, multinational corps, and big business... D:

I also cannot believe I am typing this; I might be using Firefox from now on.....

So I was using split tunneling on my VPN, sadly my VPN won't let me use both split tunnel and kill switch. I use Brave without VPN and Chrome with, I started to think, is there any other difference between my tests, and a stupid idea came to mind that SHOULD NOT matter.... I am using different browsers, so I sparked up the long-forgotten Firefox, hit no to updates and now I am pushing over 620 Mbps. My system clearly is having some problems, I use a single security solution so not ruling out something weird going on there but it is.... and I cannot believe I am saying this, somehow, legitimately the browser I am using, lol...

Thank you for the help friend, life is just silly as all hell


P.S. now Brave is going even faster than Firefox it legit might have just been the uninstalling(w/o restart and somehow tests done 30 seconds apart wildly different...) I am going to say yes, this is just so du mb and silly I am glad it's fixed one way or another, porbably the uninstall, you are a godsend. It's one of the two, it's fixed or will be soon, FML
(Chrome is still the same speed though and slower, now the VPN is throttling it as it should 🤣)
Getting 700+ Mbps
 
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