bandwidth maxxing out when watching youtube/loading websites

[#1]

Have had this issue for a while now where my net will simply time out when trying to load websites or stream basic youtube vids(even when attempting to stream it at 240p!)
My connection isnt the best(approx 3Mb) but it should still be able to handle a youtube vid or website load!  Any recommendations?  Any tools I can use to record my connection to see where this is going wrong?  FTTP is coming to the area but it keeps getting delayed so I need to get this sorted now before I lose it!

[#2]

If its a 3mb Shared connection then yes you will have problems, as sites no longer think in terms of fast loading for all connections but throw crap/ads at us and if you and more are using same the connection you will never stream videos without buffering.
If you alone use it, then you should be getting better performance but it will depend on the browser / how e.g youtube is setup to watch streams / how you are watching e.g. multi tabs is a no no on a slow connection.
3mb isn't enough to watch any higher quality than 480p on a  good day and most days more than likely 360p. Or if you are having multi tabs open and expect each page to load and update at same time it isn't going to happen, you connection simply isn't fast enough.
Then there is browser, not all are equal.  For my day to day browsing I use Opera 12 but not the chrome clone that is version 30 odds by now.  Otherwise even with having fibre, I use Waterfox which is a 64bit version of Firefox to watch streams as i find it the least likely to have issues with streams and was better for my PC when I had ADSL with slightly better speeds than you have at 4 too 5mb.  Some swear by chrome, but it doesn't work well on my pc, so Opera and Waterfox as they work.

[#3]

Hey ravingkamikaze.
If the connection is being used by more than one device you're going to be struggling as Gus says.
Interestingly, I've just performed some diagnostics which show that the SNR margin has lifted a little recently from 6db to 7db due to some downstream errors.
Might be worth connecting your router into the test socket if you have one so I can test again: http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/master-socket-guide.shtml

[#4]

the connection is sometimes shared but this issue can happen when I am on by myself as well.
I do have a master socket but dont have time to plug it in now(will change this later on and post back)

[#5]

Ok no problem, DO drop me a PM to make sure I see it and can get the test done.
I'll be here until around 8pm
Adam

[#6]

have pm'd you...

[#7]

Our tests showed that your sync jumped up to around 4mbps when you were in the master socket.
Is there a particular reason why you can't keep it there?