Without connecting to a VPN I’m getting 901 Mbps download and 4.72 upload
With a VPN on I get 854 Mbps download and 492 Mbps upload
I’ve been having issues downloading the smallest of files lately and this whole time I’ve assumed it was hardware or driver related. Finally read that I could be dealing with ISP throttling and that seems to be the case as everything is running immaculate with a VPN. WTF man! Am I just doomed to use a VPN for the rest of my life?
I was in the same situation as you. Verizon FIOS (not that that matters), normally ~1Gbps connection, then suddenly had really bad issues. Youtube videos wouldn’t load, I’d have to refresh the page multiple times, discord wouldn’t upload my images, I couldn’t open my mail online, the list goes on. Even reinstalled windows, like you did.
(Short story / background, skip to end if you don’t care)
I thought I was throttled the first day (I downloaded a shit ton of packages the previous dates), but then I booted into my linux install, and everything was fine. Returned to Windows, issue reappears. Rinse repeat, as many times as necessary to become certain that there be fuckery at play.
When I used a VPN, issue typically went away. Uninstalled VPN software, issue remains. Reset network configuration (Windows), issue remains. Reinstalled windows, issue remains. Complete wipe and reinstall, issue remains. WTF?
Then, I started looking at the packets using wireshark. Noticed the ones experiencing issues were:
The meat of the matter
Seems windows pushed out at update that fucked up the TCP/IPv6 stack, and while this has its own potential for issues, I’ve fixed the unreliability of my network connection by editing the properties of my ethernet adapter, to disable IPv6
Go to Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center > Change adapter settings > (right click) Ethernet > properties > (uncheck) Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6)
See if that works. If it doesn’t revert that change. You can also do as I did- test your connection in linux (you can use a live CD for this), and you can also try diagnosing your connection issues with wireshark as I did.
492mbps upload?? the only service I’ve ever seen with such a high upload is a leased line or google fibre. Question who’s your ISP?
You’re not throttled, I don’t think so. Just call them and ask, they will tell you if they do throttle, but I doubt they would do that.
Your speeds are quite good, what is the issue? File downlaods?
My initial question is, are you using their modem/router? I’m not specifically saying they’re limiting you via software, but usually the stuff they give you is the bare minimum, kinda like power supplies, they might all say 850w 80+ Gold, but they ain’t all the same.
With Spectrum, they like to give you a modem/router combo and I have noticed they tend to overheat due to the dual purpose. (They have since changed to separate for Wifi6, but the new wifi 6 router is god awful from what my friends and family have said)
Also, using a vpn 24/7 isn’t a bad idea, as long as it’s a reliable, reputable vpn company
Where are you throttled then?
You’re going from 901 Mbps without a VPN to 854 Mbps with a VPN?
That’s normal. You’re introducing extra hops in your connection path to the server by activating the VPN. A slightly slower speed should be expected.
Also, your VPN provider could be throttling you here, not the ISP. If the VPN has external, shared Gbit pipes, your connection could saturate that connection. Throttling you would be their way to use that same uplink for more customers. You’d especially experience that during peak hours.
But from the example you gave, a loss of 50 Mbit out of 900, that’s just normal.
Are you or anyone else on your network Torrenting, that’s basically what they target. Nothing else.
What do other PCs get on the network?
Can’t see this mentioned anywhere, but are you using wifi or wired ethernet?
I’d definitely be calling your ISP about that one, take a video of both speed tests (one video) and email that to them (or go into their store and show the staff so they can’t simply ignore you)
Well your upload speed would be negligible when downloading small files, which you say is the issue. With your download speed, that should be fast.
How i can change my name?
Your upload speed wouldn’t effect your download speed to begin with, but the VPN sending your internet data back to you is probably what’s causing the high upload speed when you have it enabled. If you’re having trouble downloading things when you have high speed internet the biggest areas for concern should be your drive speed, your RAM, and your CPU. Not your ISP. I would still call them because 4mbps up with gigabit down is really sketchy. You might still have a faulty router or bad service unrelated to the download speed issue.
Most likely, though, it’s another unfixable windows issue that will never be addressed because Microsoft’s software development teams stopped caring a long time ago.
I currently can’t use a high DPI mouse unless I restart my PC every 4 hours because Microsoft pushed out an update THREE YEARS AGO that made high polling rate mice cause CPU spikes, addressed it, and then did nothing about it.
It could also be the VPN concentrator is the bottleneck. We have one of our 3 on-prem VPNs that was so oversubscribed when covid started that we saw about the same bottleneck. I still think it was related to people running the VPN even when not using it to access devices on the network protected by that VPN and forgetting to turn it off when they were streaming video when not working at home. I wanted to say “you do knows management could theoretically see every site you are using from home when you are connected.” Theoretically because it would involve turning on logging we do not enable without a court order or approval through two different C-level reviews.
I have seen issues where disabling the v6 stack causes access issues to some stuff online, mostly in professional/work enviroemnts. But I remember having issues with Steam or Xbox app connecting at home and enabling v6 fixed it too.
As an IT Administrator, I would advise users NOT to do this, except as a testing measure. SOOO Many things are going to break if you disable TCP/IP V6. And the worst part is, that you are going to forget you did it…
This sounds EXACTLY like my situation. Thank you for this. As soon as I get home from work I’m going to look into this. It’s been driving me crazy so I’m excited to have another avenue to troubleshoot
this is old, but thank you!! this worked for me i couldn’t even load a 144p video earlier
I have Verizon Fios. When I first moved into this apartment I was getting about 800Mbps upload lol it’s insanely fast
There are 10 Gbit fiber connections almost everywhere since like 3-4 years. I‘m constantly up and downloading with around 1.1 GB/s.
Here 1000/1000mbps down/up connections are available everywhere there is a fibre connection, which is almost everywhere. Is that not the case over in america yet? I would’ve assumed you guys to be fairly up to date on internet infrastructure.
The 1000/1000 ones cost from $100/month and up, though. We pay $70/month for 300/300.