Where did my speed go?

[#1]

I am experiencing the same problem as the OP.  Glacial downloads and low kbps speed tests despite a healthy link speed (6.4Mbps).  Mind you I have not yet tried the bt tester.  The BT exchange is status is shown as green (in this area there aren't enough houses to have much contention anyway).
I have also noticed that my gateway keeps changing without me noticing a line resync event (the modem shows an uptime of 154 hours).  I am now on pte-ag1 which shows so many packets dropped that I am surprised I can print this to start with!    Meanwhile, other gateways show not much traffic shaping at this moment, e.g. PCL-AG01.
How does this work?  Is my connection meant to stay on a particular gateway until I resync, or is PN moving me around to balance the load on the gateways?
--
Regards,
Mick

[#2]

Just out of interest, and because I hadn't done it since moving to PN a month ago, I just had a play with my MTU & RWIN using DrTCP.
Gave myself quite a shock!
My RWIN was maybe a bit low at around 75000 - should have been over 100000, so I upped it to 116000 with no noticeable effect. (I've got a very stable 8128/448 link with good SNR margins.)
My MTU was 1458, so I tried 1400 out of amusement, again with no obvious effect.
BUT then I followed the full "tweaking" recommendation, setting MTU to 1500 initially in both router and PC. PERFORMANCE WAS MUCH WORSE. I got under 2Mb throughput even on the BT tester, where I'd been getting 5Mb/6Mb before.
BUT the tweak tests confirmed that 1500 should be OK! I did the detailed ping tests with different settings and could ping happily at the starting value of 1472 (1500-28). Well, I say happily, in fact I was getting the occasional failure, say 1 ping out of 4, but no fragmentation message.
Dropping the ping value to 1471 was 100% reliable, so I eventually dropped by 2, setting MTU to 1498 in both PC (XP) and router (Netgear DG834GT).
With MTU at 1498 I was back to normal on downloads. I've averaged around 6Mb since joining PN.
I can't remember why I set it at 1458 before though, probably read it in an FAQ somewhere.
I'm not sure what this proves either .........

[#3]

I have done the tweak and got the best speed I ever had 3000kbps. I wished it would stay at that or near that.
I too am trying to work at the weekend doing research which includes international calls using skype.
Here is this evenings offering on my Premier £21.99 per month Up to 8mb service

In my opinion to get a usable broadband service we should not have spend time tweaking RTU & win, changing gateways and rebooting routers.
This is becoming embarrassing for me now. Friends, work colleagues and clients are now taking the p*** out of me and my internet connection because they are affected by my inability to properly communicate with them. Skype for example does not work at 169kbps down and 94 up. Successful conversations usually starts of by them asking first "how are you" and second "is your internet connection working ok today"

[#4]

Sounds like this is a bit too complicated to get fixed on here, have you raised a ticket on your account to get it looked at? There are so many things (within our control and firmly outside of it) that could be causing this and what you really need is for someone to run through all the possibilities and tests with you.
Our support guys (and gals!) are really good and I can't even begin to help with this in their place, I'm sure they can help you out if you give them a call.

[#5]

Quote from: Santiago

In my opinion to get a usable broadband service we should not have spend time tweaking RTU & win, changing gateways and rebooting routers.

Unfortunately, for some of that you can blame Microsoft, not PlusNet.
I know it might be a dumb question, but have you checked your PC's performance, starting with Task Manager. I see so many systems that run really slow because of insufficient memory or similar problems.

[#6]

@Paula

Quote

Sounds like this is a bit too complicated to get fixed on here, have you raised a ticket on your account to get it looked at

Is it worth it to raise a ticket? 
Via the forum Plusnet have only ever suggested to me to deal with the isssues at my end i.e.the usual master socket, internal wiring and hardware. I have been through all this before. What difference will raising a ticket make?
@HP sauce

Quote

Unfortunately, for some of that you can blame Microsoft, not PlusNet.

True.
I don't believe there any hardware problems here

[#7]

Quote from: Santiago

Is it worth it to raise a ticket?

I saw a comment by PN staff that they now have a dedicated "performance issues" team, so YES!

[#8]

Ok I will them a try. I will raise a ticket 

[#9]

Good luck.
Just out of interest, you signature implies you're on a "Force 9" package.
What are the limits and have you by any chance reached them?

[#10]

Quote

What are the limits and have you by any chance reached them?

Don't get me started on that subject. I already had a little rant about that last week
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,62039.msg501334.html#msg501334
I am ok on that side at the moment I am only 6 days into my billing period.
I understand that Plusnet got an award, so they must be good....right?
So yes, I will raise a ticket asking Plusnet to stop my speed dropping from 3000kbps to 169kbps
BTW how do you enter the hyperlink as text rather than the whole link?

[#11]

Quote from: Santiago

I understand that Plusnet got an award, so they must be good....right?

Well I came here a month ago from Tiscali who were apparently voted best ISP for customer service in 2007...
All I can say so far is that PlusNet are in a whole different time-space continuum to Tiscali (a better one).

[#12]

Quote

BTW how do you enter the hyperlink as text rather than the whole link?

[ url=http://community.plus.net....msg501334.html#msg501334]have a rant[/url
Hope this is clear had to frig it a bit

[#13]

Without any frigging entering
[url=http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,62039.msg501334.html#msg501334]have a rant[/url]
results in the hyperlinked have a rant.
I put [nobbc] … [/nobbc] tags round the first one to stop the url tags being interpreted.

[#14]

Thank you both

[#15]

Ive seen that before but can never remember the link, now got it bookmarked
http://docs.simplemachines.org/index.php?P=3e286a6c6eb0ab111a8648891836c8b0&topic=57
thats for all the codes if you are interested