Question Internet speed slower than actual speed

steelrfan85

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I have ran a speed test on my modem and router and both were around 15 download. I have spectrum and he did his test and got 327. He thinks something with my computer or router. He also replaced modem and ran again. Still 345. I have no firewall on, I know it’s stupid. I have a very expensive net gear router R7000. I just ran speed from my nighthawk app and got 240. I have tried hardwiring modem directly to My computer as well as router. I do not use VPN. Any thoughts on what could be causing the issue?
 
@steelrfan85
You got 15 ... ummm, 15 what? Mb/s? MB/s? It makes a big difference. The 327 and 345 ... I'm gonna guess that Mb/s and you have a 400 Mb/s package (Ultra?).

Your using WiFi from modem to router and then again from router to computer? If that's the case, all bets are off.

You tried hard wiring ... Ethernet I assume, Cat3, Cat 5, Cat5e, etc? Did you see any change? Did you try bypassing the router?

You tested from your router and got 240 (Mb/s, I assume). Ahhhh, so the issue probably with your computer or how it connects to your router (BTW, why do you have a router? Does your modem lack WiFi?). Possibilities ... QoS, misconfigured network port on the computer, software that is interfering, bad or wrong driver, poor WiFi connection, etc.
 

steelrfan85

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The modem they gave me does not have WiFi. Yes in MB/s. I have the provided yellow Ethernet from modem to router and a cat6 from router to the back of my PC. I used the netgear app to run remote test. That’s when it showed the 327 MB/s. My mom ran a speed test from her phone on my WiFi from speed test.net and also got around 15 MB/s like my computer showed connected straight from modem to PC. Spectrum had me try straight from modem to computer as well as router to computer over the phone And both were around 15 MB/s. I’m not much of a computer person when it comes to network ports. I can see if it’s a bad driver. It’s an ASUS rog crosshair VII with Windows10. Is there a better way to hook it up? Tech said most people do the modem to router and then router to PC.
 
To update/check the driver, the easiest thing is to go to the Device Manager in Windows (type "Device" in the search bar and it should come up). When that comes up, look a tad past half way down the list of devices and you should see "Network Adapters". Click the ">" next to that and it will list all your network adapter devices. Your looking for your WiFi driver ("Wireless AC-XXXX" or something) and your Ethernet ("PCIe Gigabit" or something) driver. Right click those and you will see "Update driver" ... click that and follow the prompts.

Spectrum offers 3 packages that I know of ...
  1. Standard ... 50-200 Mb/s
  2. Ultra ... 200-400 Mb/s
  3. Giga ... 940 Mb/s

If you are getting 15 MB/s, that equates to 120 Mb/s ... still half of what you expected, but not as bad as you thought.

Since the modem they provided does not have WiFi, you have to use some sort of WiFi access point (which is what your router is doing).

Better way to hook it up ... I'm going to assume you use the computer for gaming. Real gamers don't use WiFi. If that's your goal, then Ethernet is your only choice. If your casual, then WiFi is fine, but you will have to accept lag from time to time.
 

steelrfan85

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I do gaming in my PC but I stream movies and stuff out in my living room across the house which is why I use WiFi. I’ll look at drivers tonight. If they are up to date, what would be the next step?
 
The first think I would look is to check the ethernet settings to make sure your link speed is gigabit. If not, that's the issue.

Assuming the link speed is correct, we need to find out if it's a hardware/network issue or a windows issue. To find this out, we need a linux live cd and for you to boot that and run a speedtest on that. If the speedtest is fine on that, then it's definitely a windows issue. If not, then we'll need to dig deeper into hardware and network configuration.
 

steelrfan85

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I unplugged Ethernet from back of PC and only have cable from modem to router. I ran speed test in my phone and PC and it showed around 16 Mbps but I ran my WiFi app and it showed 378Mbps. How is this possible? My PC has WiFi built in so I used that connection. I h as be an ADT WiFi plugged in but I don’t think that would cause any problems.
 

steelrfan85

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I ran my ethernet cable into my laptop and got 401 Mbps but then again ran into my PC and got 17 Mbps. I changed out ethernet cables with the same results. Wifi signal only put out 15 Mbps. I downloaded the Gigabit driver from intel's website and still same outcome
 
@steelrfan85
So, going back to my original post of possible issues when you have decided the issue is your computer (which it seems you have):
QoS - probably not since other computers don't have this issue.
Misconfigured network port - maybe, but this is on WiFi and Ethernet
Driver issue - again on both WiFi and Ethernet, so less likely.
That leaves a software issue ... Those can be hard to track down.

  1. Network reset
  2. Remove and reinstall antivirus/security software
  3. Remove any software that promises to make your network faster (Turbo LAN, Fast IP, etc)
  4. From there it gets harder ... I have known people who end up reinstalling Windows at this point (Not my favorite solution).