Anything I've missed?

[#1]

Those ethernet/wireless speeds suggest you are working fine internally, so a slow ethernet may not be the cause of your problem.

Quote from: Goreliscious

Is the BT Speed Tester the most accurate? Yesterday I did a speed test on speedtest.net and it came out at 15MB, then I did BT straight after and it said 9MB?! I don't understand what that means.

It s mainly a reminder that Speed testers are not a perfectly reliable way of *definitively* testing speed. While they might be accurate at telling you the speed (but not always), there is little you can tell about the source of any slowdown.
However, it does seem to be saying that you do have a setup that is capable of giving you 15Mbps end-end out onto the real internet; that there is nothing fundamental getting in the way of your data.
Having said that, you do seem to get an awful lot of 9Mbps results, which cannot be a coincidence. Something, somewhere, is getting in the way - and the trick is finding our what that it.
Is there anything about the 15Mb results that you can say are all the same - all from one machine, or to one tester, or all over ethernet? The same for the 9Mb results too. Anything to help tie down the coincidences...
If you run a series of tests at speedtest.net (not BT), do you get much variation? Do you ever see the 9Mb result there?
How about if you download some large files manually? Do they give you the 9Mb behaviour, or the 15Mb behaviour? Some example files can be found at http://www.thinkbroadband.com/download.html (though beware of the bigger ones on your monthly usage allowance).

[#2]

HI Goreliscious,
Are the 9Mbps results via wireless or ethernet?
Jojo

[#3]

Ethernet.

[#4]

HI Goreliscious,
I can see that you did have a fault raised, we would have needed to have you test another router which is why we offered one. If we had supplied you with a router then we would have sent you one free to test, but as you don't use one of our supplied routers then that's why we would have to charge you for one. There are many things that will cause the problem you are having.  At this time I can only suggest that you try our troubleshooter for suggestions, including trying a new router if possible.
Jojo

[#5]

I can't help thinking that this still looks exactly like my own problem.
When you run tests on speedtest.net do you get a nice steady speed (flat line on the graph and a constant level on the 'speedometer')? Or is it a spikey graph accompanied by the speedometer appearing to stick and then shoot up?
The former indicates a speed restriction such as actual bandwidth throttling or a network speed level such as 11Mb wifi, 10Mb ethernet or the limit of your adsl. The latter is probably some network configuration problem, buffering software problem.
I have that problem on this machine, a Windows XP desktop. I improved matters lot by playing with the IP stack settings but it still does it. Booting the same machine into Ubuntu resolves things completely.
Steve

[#6]

Quote from: stephenw10

When you run tests on speedtest.net do you get a nice steady speed (flat line on the graph and a constant level on the 'speedometer')? Or is it a spikey graph accompanied by the speedometer appearing to stick and then shoot up? The former indicates a speed restriction such as actual bandwidth throttling or a network speed level such as 11Mb wifi, 10Mb ethernet or the limit of your adsl. The latter is probably some network configuration problem, buffering software problem. I have that problem on this machine, a Windows XP desktop. I improved matters lot by playing with the IP stack settings but it still does it. Booting the same machine into Ubuntu resolves things completely.

Spikey. What's the IP stack and what's Ubuntu? Sounds like an African tribe.

[#7]

Ah.
The IP stack is an internal part of Windows (or any OS) that handles networking. It has many settings most of which you never need to know about. Occasionally, particularly in Windows XP or earlier, the settings can be changed by something leading to strange behaviour.
Ubuntu is a Linux based operating system that can run on your laptop. You can download it and put it onto a CD and boot form that. It doesn't touch your windows installation. It will use it's own IP stack so you can test your connection independently. http://www.ubuntu.com
That may be a bit over your head and if it is I apologise. I think it's probably worth while trying to get a completely different computer to do a test. Alternatively try taking your laptop to a different location and run test. Are you able to see the full download speed from a different location?
Steve

[#8]

Hi Goreliscious,
Now i have a connection back, and it runs at FTTC speeds, rather than 8Mbps, I can tell you that I've run into *exactly* the same kind of problem here. Ironic, eh?
A couple of my computers are capable of generating downloads at 33-34Mbps, and doing so repeatedly.
However, a couple seem to want to stay in the 9-10Mbps region (especially on speedtest.net), with occasional jumps to 12-13mbps (especially on mybroadbandspeed.co.uk).
Both of the "faulty" machines are connected to my LAN using gigabit ethernet - confirmed by software and by the various LED lights on switches - but neither can read from the internet very well.
I'm somewhat baffled as to the results I'm getting, because sometimes both machines seem capable of doing so much more when just communicating internally: The 2 machines will transfer files between themselves at over 250 Mbps.
The moral here is that the restriction could just be your computer's hardware or software - the drivers, or the "IP stack".

[#9]

Wombat, I'd be interested to hear if either of your 'faulty' machines perform any better if you boot from a live cd into another OS. Also what OS they are running normally.
Steve

[#10]

One of the "faulty" machine is Windows 7, in 64-bit mode. It seems that the fault here was in the use of a Firefox add-on: IE worked correctly, as did Firefox once I disabled that add-on (a website debugging tool known as Firebug).
The other one is a server, hidden away in the garage. It is Linux, of elderly Fedora Core 5 vintage, but otherwise works just fine. I haven't gotten to the bottom of the behaviour there, and I'm loath to spend a lot of time upgrading it at the moment. A quick live CD might be needed...

[#11]

Can someone tell me how to IP Stack as I've now got a new wireless router and this problem persists? Cheers