Question Why Is My Internet Slow? (I've only accidently fixed it)

[PaPies]

Describing Screenshot: I've paused and unpaused 3 times, it jumps straight to 21-22Mbps instantly no built up and it stays there. (Steam)


I have a 1gbps fiber going in, but it's limited to 100Mpbs(that's what I'm paying for)
speedtest.net seems to be fine, Here is an example: Download and Upload

View: https://i.imgur.com/6qwrKTa.jpg

I'm also able to download 2 things at once without the speed dropping, including watching livestreams on top of that, but it doesn't go higher than 21-22 nor drops : 3 GB LATER

I've managed to fix it by restarting the computer, but now I can't even do that, restarted 3 times and I am still getting 21-22Mbps when it should be 100Mbps downloading, this is not Steam exclusive either!

I have NO IDEA as to why this happens and I think it's only on this PC!

 

[drivinfast247]

Make sure you disabled "Priority" in your router settings.

 

[PaPies]

Make sure you disabled "Priority" in your router settings.

Priority is set to 0, but the problem is I am using a wired connection, so it shouldn't make a difference.

 

[bill001g]

I am assuming you are using some other tool to measure the network speed and not the numbers you get from steam. Normally file downloads are in MBYTES and things like speedtest are Mbits.

This can actually be the server unless you have some other machine you can download from steam. Steam is strange for me some things download at almost my full gigabit rate and others at times are real slow, I almost think it depends on how popular a game is.

Since speedtest works this means pretty much everything is working correctly. It is not going to be your router or your ISP because they don't know the difference kinda of downloads. Of course make sure you are not using any form of QoS or any other things like firewall or parental controls. If you have a simple config you might just factory reset the router and only set the admin and wifi passwords to be sure nothing accidentally got set.

So you can blindly try to disable IPv6. IPv6 has performance issues for many people and you can get inconsistent results when some sites are using IPv6 and other IPv4.

After this it is finding some software that is limiting certain kinds of traffic. One of the extremely common offenders is any of that stupid "gamer" network software you find bundled with the bloatware on motherboards and video cards. A very common name is called CFOSspeed but anything that claims to favor one kind of traffic over the other should be uninstalled.

 

[PaPies]

I am assuming you are using some other tool to measure the network speed and not the numbers you get from steam. Normally file downloads are in MBYTES and things like speedtest are Mbits.

This can actually be the server unless you have some other machine you can download from steam. Steam is strange for me some things download at almost my full gigabit rate and others at times are real slow, I almost think it depends on how popular a game is.

Since speedtest works this means pretty much everything is working correctly. It is not going to be your router or your ISP because they don't know the difference kinda of downloads. Of course make sure you are not using any form of QoS or any other things like firewall or parental controls. If you have a simple config you might just factory reset the router and only set the admin and wifi passwords to be sure nothing accidentally got set.

So you can blindly try to disable IPv6. IPv6 has performance issues for many people and you can get inconsistent results when some sites are using IPv6 and other IPv4.

After this it is finding some software that is limiting certain kinds of traffic. One of the extremely common offenders is any of that stupid "gamer" network software you find bundled with the bloatware on motherboards and video cards. A very common name is called CFOSspeed but anything that claims to favor one kind of traffic over the other should be uninstalled.

Hey, yeah of course I've tested multiple stuff, and everything are in mbps, 1:1 ratio from one another in terms of speed.
After restarting the router, the speed seemed to go back to normal but eventually went back to being ~20 for some reason
I've tried disabling IPv6 prior to posting this, including changing DNS to google and cloudflare but no luck.

 

[PaPies]

Make sure you disabled "Priority" in your router settings.

I am assuming you are using some other tool to measure the network speed and not the numbers you get from steam. Normally file downloads are in MBYTES and things like speedtest are Mbits.

This can actually be the server unless you have some other machine you can download from steam. Steam is strange for me some things download at almost my full gigabit rate and others at times are real slow, I almost think it depends on how popular a game is.

Since speedtest works this means pretty much everything is working correctly. It is not going to be your router or your ISP because they don't know the difference kinda of downloads. Of course make sure you are not using any form of QoS or any other things like firewall or parental controls. If you have a simple config you might just factory reset the router and only set the admin and wifi passwords to be sure nothing accidentally got set.

So you can blindly try to disable IPv6. IPv6 has performance issues for many people and you can get inconsistent results when some sites are using IPv6 and other IPv4.

After this it is finding some software that is limiting certain kinds of traffic. One of the extremely common offenders is any of that stupid "gamer" network software you find bundled with the bloatware on motherboards and video cards. A very common name is called CFOSspeed but anything that claims to favor one kind of traffic over the other should be uninstalled.

Hey, I've managed to somewhat "re-produce" the issue. Sometimes it work just disabling and enabling the network, sometimes it requires restarting the router but none of them are 100%.

What could be the issue here?

 

[Ralston18]

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Network: ISP, modem, router? Make and model information?

Run "ipconfig /all" (without quotes) via the Command Prompt and post the results.

Use Task Manager and Resource Monitor (use both tools but only one tool at a time) to observe system performance.

If/when the speed is as expected and then downshifts to a slower rate then you may see something that changes when the downshift occurs.

Just leave the tool window open so you can view what happens during what ever speed testing is being done.

May take a bit of trial and error to work out the screen configuration and focus on any given resource. You can sort the data columns presented so take advantage of that when you can.

One thing to immediately watch for is some other task, app, process launching in the background when the speed drops.

 

[PaPies]

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Network: ISP, modem, router? Make and model information?

Run "ipconfig /all" (without quotes) via the Command Prompt and post the results.

Use Task Manager and Resource Monitor (use both tools but only one tool at a time) to observe system performance.

If/when the speed is as expected and then downshifts to a slower rate then you may see something that changes when the downshift occurs.

Just leave the tool window open so you can view what happens during what ever speed testing is being done.

May take a bit of trial and error to work out the screen configuration and focus on any given resource. You can sort the data columns presented so take advantage of that when you can.

One thing to immediately watch for is some other task, app, process launching in the background when the speed drops.

Z490 Gigabyte Gaming X
i7 10700K
RTX 3080
32GB 3200Mhz

ISP isn't relevant as it's not in the main countries of the world where the name is recognizable.
The router is a ZTE Model ZXHN F670L Feb 2022 (provided by the ISP) I am using cable to connect.

The problem is that everything is stuck at 20mbps. I can open 4 tabs, each 20Mbps and have a total of 80Mbps coming through, but I can't get one fo them to be 20+ unless I restart internet and so on, and may not work all the time.

 

[Ralston18]

ISP is relevant because there may be others familar with the company, its' policies, and the equipment that the company provides.

Tom's is a world-wide Forum.

= = = =

This modem/router?

https://www.routeripaddress.com/routers/12148/zte-f670l.html

Do you have a fiber optic connection?

You mentioned using a "cable to connect": What kind of cable and what is the cable connecting?

= = = =

The "ipconfig /all" results seem incomplete. Verify that one and only network adapter (either wired or wireless) is enabled. Not both adapters at the same time. Or two of any type network adapter. Only one network adapter should be enabled.

Try disabling IPv6. IPv6 can often be problematic. Use only IPv4.

= = = =

The 20 Mbps "limits" with an overall cap of 80 Mbps may be controllable within the modem/router.

Are you able to login into the ZTE modem router using a browser and 192.168.1.1?

If so, there may be some applicable configuration settings.

If you are not able to log into the modem router then you will need help from whomever has the necessary admin rights to the modem/router.

 

[bill001g]

If you had come here and asked how to actually limit each stream to 20mbps I would have told you it would almost be impossible to do.

There are likely software apps that can do this but I would think you would have remembered installing it. Although some router have the ability to limit traffic to fixed data rates they limit by IP address not each session. So you could limit the pc to 20mbps total but I have not seen one that will limit each session to 20mbps.

What makes this more strange is speedtest runs fine. Speedtest does have the ability to run multiple streams of data but you would have to watch the resource manager network tab to see how many sessions it opens. Steam also runs multiple streams of data similar to torrent downloads so you would think it could get more than 20mbps total even if each session was limited to 20mbps.

If it is not software on your pc then that pretty much means it is the ISP. They would have to be very dishonorable to do this. They are letting speedtest run at full speed so they can pretend you are getting the speed they sell but limiting all other traffic. That is rather unlikely and it also means they have to have a expensive traffic shaper in their network doing the limiting. Not sure a easy way to test this. If you were to run a vpn and then run the speedtest via the vpn the ISP should limit it to 20mbps. Problem is vpn will influence the speedtest number because of the overhead so it is not a real good test.

Not sure the next step. Do you have another pc or maybe even your phone....but you would have to find some download to compare phone to the pc since you can't run steam on a phone.

 

[bniknafs9]

try DNS fiddling see if that helps .

 

[bill001g]

try DNS fiddling see if that helps .

Very unlikely it is DNS related. First steam does not use DNS to find its download servers. Next DNS is only used to translate the name to the IP address. When the PC gets the IP address it will then open the download session. The dns function will not affect the actual download speed. In addition if you were to download multiple files from the same server the pc would not even ask the DNS server for the IP address again because it keeps it cached for a period of time.

 

[PaPies]

ISP is relevant because there may be others familar with the company, its' policies, and the equipment that the company provides.

Tom's is a world-wide Forum.

= = = =

This modem/router?

https://www.routeripaddress.com/routers/12148/zte-f670l.html

Do you have a fiber optic connection?

You mentioned using a "cable to connect": What kind of cable and what is the cable connecting?

= = = =

The "ipconfig /all" results seem incomplete. Verify that one and only network adapter (either wired or wireless) is enabled. Not both adapters at the same time. Or two of any type network adapter. Only one network adapter should be enabled.

Try disabling IPv6. IPv6 can often be problematic. Use only IPv4.

= = = =

The 20 Mbps "limits" with an overall cap of 80 Mbps may be controllable within the modem/router.

Are you able to login into the ZTE modem router using a browser and 192.168.1.1?

If so, there may be some applicable configuration settings.

If you are not able to log into the modem router then you will need help from whomever has the necessary admin rights to the modem/router.

After so many hours left and right, here is how I reproduce the issue: going from the 20mbps to 100.

Youtube Video Reproduce Problem

(excuse the muted colors, original recorded video is in HDR, I didn't wanna wait 5 times longer for HDR to render)

The link is the router that I have yes.
I've tested other ISP's and I am having the same issue, stuck at 20 and only after doing what I did in the video does it go up to the speed it needs to
The connection is fibre optic, only the last few meters are ethernet cable.
ipconfig all gives me the exact thing that I provided earlier last week.
I am using 192.168.1.1, yes.

 

[PaPies]

WALL OF TEXT

I used another ISP and I got the same problem, I am guessing it's something related here rather than the ISP, but I also believe they might have problems with the infrastructure, heading to Valve even as I did get this on April 2nd the whole day until I restarted the router again.

This included Steamcommunity, steampowered, help,steampowered, counter-strike.net, etc.