BB speed checkers

Suspicious that I am not getting anything like the bandwidth I should
expect, I wonder whether anyone can tell me whether internal wireless
network speed impacts speed-check results? Also would anyone know how
to get (which?) stats out of a netgear WGR614v6 wireless router from a
windows pc? Finally, which online speed checkers are most reliable?

TIA,
Chris

Chris Dent wrote:

> Suspicious that I am not getting anything like the bandwidth I should
> expect, I wonder whether anyone can tell me whether internal wireless
> network speed impacts speed-check results?

Only if it's crap. Most speedcheckers are shit anyway.

Try this, I have found it highly reliable ....
http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/

Graham

John wrote:

> Chris Dent wrote:
> > Suspicious that I am not getting anything like the bandwidth I should
> > expect, I wonder whether anyone can tell me whether internal wireless
> > network speed impacts speed-check results? Also would anyone know how
> > to get (which?) stats out of a netgear WGR614v6 wireless router from a
> > windows pc? Finally, which online speed checkers are most reliable?
>
> www.speedtester.bt.com is the only one that your ISP will take any notice of
> if you complain about speed issues as it tells you your IP Profile and
> throughput speed.

If you can get the bloody thing to work !

Graham

Ato_Zee wrote:
> In your case here are two figures, you link to your ISP sync speed,
> and your wirelees connection link rate. No matter how fast your
> sync speed, if it's a weak signal wireless connection, then a
> speedtester from your PC will only show rhe crap speed of your
> wirelees connection.

OK, but the theoretical wireless network speed is 54 Mbps and it never
seems to dip below a reported 48 Mbps so my feeling was this issue
shouldn't make a lot of difference with an up to 20Mb service. Right?
Chris

"Ato_Zee" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:153Ik.22338$(E-Mail Removed)2...
>
>> OK, but the theoretical wireless network speed is 54 Mbps and it never
>> seems to dip below a reported 48 Mbps so my feeling was this issue
>> shouldn't make a lot of difference with an up to 20Mb service. Right?
>> Chris
>
> If you are actually getting a good wireless rate and are satisfied that
> this in not a bottleneck, then you need to collect some info. and do
> some basic tests.

[snip good stuff]

Was testing this recently using several (Edimax) wireless access points as
intelligent repeaters (sometimes called WDS).

Topography was:

ADSL router with wireless
|
WAP-one
|
WAP-two
|
Laptop with wireless client.

PC wired to ADSL router achieves 1Mbit/sec on www.speedtest.net - this is
all I can expect on my long line.

Tried a PC wired in turn to WAP-one then WAP-two. At WAP-one, about
700kbits/sec. At WAP-two, about 300 kbits/sec. This despite each WAP
reporting a good signal, and the laptop reporting 24mbits/sec wireless
connection. Shows the disadvantage of WDS, I think.

Also, at one point I had a desktop PC with a Vigor N61 USB wireless adapter.
This performed much as expected using the wireless. BUT, even when this PC
was connected direct to the ADSL router using an ethernet cable, and with
the USB wireless device unplugged, it only achieved about 300kbits/sec -
until I uninstalled the driver for the N61. Then performance returned to
about 1mbit/sec

So the warning is, uninstall drivers for unused network hardware before
running performance tests.

--
Graham J

Chris Dent wrote:

> Ato_Zee wrote:
> > In your case here are two figures, you link to your ISP sync speed,
> > and your wirelees connection link rate. No matter how fast your
> > sync speed, if it's a weak signal wireless connection, then a
> > speedtester from your PC will only show rhe crap speed of your
> > wirelees connection.
>
> OK, but the theoretical wireless network speed is 54 Mbps and it never
> seems to dip below a reported 48 Mbps so my feeling was this issue
> shouldn't make a lot of difference with an up to 20Mb service. Right?

It'll always make a small difference due to 'overheads', packet resends
etc. How do you KNOW it's 48Mbps btw ?

Graham

Graham J wrote:

> "Ato_Zee" wrote
> >
> >> OK, but the theoretical wireless network speed is 54 Mbps and it never
> >> seems to dip below a reported 48 Mbps so my feeling was this issue
> >> shouldn't make a lot of difference with an up to 20Mb service. Right?
> >> Chris
> >
> > If you are actually getting a good wireless rate and are satisfied that
> > this in not a bottleneck, then you need to collect some info. and do
> > some basic tests.
>
> [snip good stuff]
>
> Was testing this recently using several (Edimax) wireless access points as
> intelligent repeaters (sometimes called WDS).
>
> Topography was:
>
> ADSL router with wireless
> |
> WAP-one
> |
> WAP-two
> |
> Laptop with wireless client.
>
> PC wired to ADSL router achieves 1Mbit/sec on www.speedtest.net - this is
> all I can expect on my long line.
>
> Tried a PC wired in turn to WAP-one then WAP-two. At WAP-one, about
> 700kbits/sec. At WAP-two, about 300 kbits/sec. This despite each WAP
> reporting a good signal, and the laptop reporting 24mbits/sec wireless
> connection. Shows the disadvantage of WDS, I think.
>
> Also, at one point I had a desktop PC with a Vigor N61 USB wireless adapter.
> This performed much as expected using the wireless. BUT, even when this PC
> was connected direct to the ADSL router using an ethernet cable, and with
> the USB wireless device unplugged, it only achieved about 300kbits/sec -
> until I uninstalled the driver for the N61. Then performance returned to
> about 1mbit/sec
>
> So the warning is, uninstall drivers for unused network hardware before
> running performance tests.

Good advice. I did that myself recently as a precaution.

Graham

On Sat, 11 Oct 2008 17:59:18 +0100, Graham J wrote:

> Tried a PC wired in turn to WAP-one then WAP-two. At WAP-one, about
> 700kbits/sec. At WAP-two, about 300 kbits/sec. This despite each WAP
> reporting a good signal, and the laptop reporting 24mbits/sec wireless
> connection. Shows the disadvantage of WDS, I think.

Exactly, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireles...bution_System:

"throughput in this method is halved for all clients connected to a
router that is connected with WDS."

Although it should probably say something like, throughput is halved for
every WDS hop.

--
<http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) ((E-Mail Removed))
17:18:01 up 8 days, 6:14, 1 user, load average: 0.05, 0.08, 0.08
They call me titless because I have no tits

Eeyore wrote:
> It'll always make a small difference due to 'overheads', packet resends
> etc. How do you KNOW it's 48Mbps btw ?

Hmmm... "know"... Windows wireless network connection status says the
speed is either 54 or, more usually, 48Mbps. Not that I believe the
absolute numbers but I don't see a significant bottleneck here with an
up to 20Mbps service.

To be honest, I'm not a big bandwidth user (and was previously quite
happy with up to 2Mbps) but now I am entitled to much more, I feel I
should have it. Through this router speedtest.net is testing at less
than 8 and sometimes much lower which I don't think can be right. With
up to 2Mbps service and an 11Mbps router I was usually getting close to 2.
Chris

Chris Dent wrote:

> Eeyore wrote:
> > It'll always make a small difference due to 'overheads', packet resends
> > etc. How do you KNOW it's 48Mbps btw ?
>
> Hmmm... "know"... Windows wireless network connection status says the
> speed is either 54 or, more usually, 48Mbps.

And you believe anything Windoze says ?


> Not that I believe the
> absolute numbers but I don't see a significant bottleneck here with an
> up to 20Mbps service.
>
> To be honest, I'm not a big bandwidth user (and was previously quite
> happy with up to 2Mbps) but now I am entitled to much more, I feel I
> should have it. Through this router speedtest.net is testing at less
> than 8 and sometimes much lower which I don't think can be right. With
> up to 2Mbps service and an 11Mbps router I was usually getting close to 2.
> Chris

Try this.
http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/

Graham