cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Speed halved (or worse)

leng
Grafter
Posts: 78
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎06-12-2007

Speed halved (or worse)

For some time I have had a relatively stable down/up speed of around 36/8 (Mb/s).  A few days ago I noticed that games were getting choppy and websites were taking inordinate times to refresh (or timing out).  I was also getting transient "server not found" errors.  The BT speed tester has given me readings of 10/2 - 17/6.5 and tells me I have a line profile of 29Mb/s and should see 20-29 down.
There appear to be no known ongoing problems on the service page.  No changes have occurred to my home network in the relevant period.
Any suggestions or should I go ahead and raise a fault ticket?
10 REPLIES 10
MatthewWheeler
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 8,896
Thanks: 1,506
Fixes: 480
Registered: ‎01-01-2012

Re: Speed halved (or worse)

Hi there
I've looked over your account and I can't see any issues with the line. You are pretty much maxing out your upload every hour so that might not be helping
Are you running these tests over a wired connection and have you made sure you have no programs running in the background?
If this post resolved your issue please click the 'This fixed my problem' button
 Matthew Wheeler
 Plusnet Help Team
leng
Grafter
Posts: 78
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎06-12-2007

Re: Speed halved (or worse)

Thanks for the prompt reply.  I can confirm that the connection was wired, but there might have been some non-network activity in the background.  I'm a little concerned about the upload being maxxed out - I was not aware I was using that much uplink capacity.  There were some automatic backups running but they should not have run full time.  Maybe my gaming consumes more uplink than I expected.
So I disabled wireless on the router, disconnected all devices and rebooted it.
Then I connected it to my laptop by Ethernet cable and disabled firewall and anti-virus.  Nothing else running.
rerun test : result was
Download speedachieved during the test was - 10.4 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis  20 Mbps-29.23 Mbps .
Additional Information:
IP Profile for your line is - 29.23 Mbps
Upload speed was 4.67.
Time about 21:15.  I'll run it again midmorning for contrast.
Oh, yes, this was on IE11 since I never use that browser and it is therefore without any potentially conflicting add-ons.  I'll try again tomorrow morning to see if time of day is in any way significant.  I'll also run a detailed scan on my desktop system and look see if the upload was in any way suspicious, although with the laptop also reporting severely degraded performance I'm not sure it is relevant.
As of this morning (~9:30) speed was 18.93/7.95 so the up speed is more or less back to normal but down is still barely half of what I was getting.
plusnettony
Plusnet Staff
Plusnet Staff
Posts: 2,188
Thanks: 48
Fixes: 18
Registered: ‎24-07-2014

Re: Speed halved (or worse)

Hi,
I've done a test on your line and confirm sync rates are about right, as are our profile speeds.
Should your computer/network be OK, please complete the fault that you've started to raise on the portal, we'll ensure our team of fault experts take a look for you.
Thanks,
Tony
If this post resolved your issue please click the 'This fixed my problem' button
 Tony T
 Plusnet Help Team
leng
Grafter
Posts: 78
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎06-12-2007

Re: Speed halved (or worse)

Thanks.  I've transferred this info to the fault report and added the latest test results.
plusnettony
Plusnet Staff
Plusnet Staff
Posts: 2,188
Thanks: 48
Fixes: 18
Registered: ‎24-07-2014

Re: Speed halved (or worse)

Thanks for that. If you find you need anything, just post here or on the ticket and we'll advise.
Tony
If this post resolved your issue please click the 'This fixed my problem' button
 Tony T
 Plusnet Help Team
leng
Grafter
Posts: 78
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎06-12-2007

Re: Speed halved (or worse)

FYI, I gave up playing an MMO earlier due to lag issues and ran the tester. (at 18:50)
---------------------------
1. Best Effort Test:
Download Speed : 5.94 Mbps
2. Upstream Test:
Upload Speed : 6.65 Mbps
-------------------------
The "further tests" reported this but were unable to access the server (timeout?)
Later, at 21:30 it was even worse -
-------------------------
Download speedachieved during the test was - 2.64 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 20 Mbps-29.23 Mbps .
Additional Information:
IP Profile for your line is - 29.23 Mbps
2. Upstream Test: -provides background information.
Upload Speed
2.32 Mbps

Upload speed achieved during the test was - 2.32Mbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 10 Mbps
--------------------------
plusnettony
Plusnet Staff
Plusnet Staff
Posts: 2,188
Thanks: 48
Fixes: 18
Registered: ‎24-07-2014

Re: Speed halved (or worse)

Thanks for the update, sorry to see that it's ongoing.
I've checked in your ticket and the faults team are on investigating still.
Tony
If this post resolved your issue please click the 'This fixed my problem' button
 Tony T
 Plusnet Help Team
leng
Grafter
Posts: 78
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎06-12-2007

Re: Speed halved (or worse)

Thanks for keeping an eye on things. 
I'm slightly confused as to why after a long time with speeds in the mid 30's my profile is now 29.43.  Not that I am even seeing anything approaching that - not so long ago I torrented a Mint Linux DVD and had sustained downloads of ~4MB/s.  Now suddenly someone has filled the pipes with mud.
Chris
Legend
Posts: 17,724
Thanks: 600
Fixes: 169
Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Re: Speed halved (or worse)

There can be a number of reasons for the profile to dip, from brief spikes in noise (which should mean the profile increases quickly again) to cross-talk from more lines being installed at the cabinet. The faults team will pick up your latest update on the ticket and get back to you asap.
Former Plusnet Staff member. Posts after 31st Jan 2020 are not on behalf of Plusnet.
leng
Grafter
Posts: 78
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎06-12-2007

Re: Speed halved (or worse)

Just so anyone looking at speed problems knows ...
The line seems to have stabilized at ~28Mb/s.  Not quite the 36 I was getting before things went pear-shaped but certainly a major improvement.  The tech support guy (Dwayne) said he had noticed some crosstalk but that might be a false positive and his tests were showing no other signs of faults so I've closed the problem report and I'll reopen it if the issue surfaces again.
Chris, thanks for monitoring this.