Slow Download Problem - Tried everything!

[Albchiv]

Am having a major problem with download speeds. Dan Elwell’s latest test shows downloads from UK & East coast USA “timed out” and European at only 50kb/s! Ping times were excellent.
Have reported this to NTL/VM who say there is no problem with the cable or modem. I am paying for 4mb. They gave me some ideas on how to proceed…
Close file sharing progs. None. Clear temp Int files. Done. Remove unnecessary Start Up Progs. Did. Reboot in safe network mode. Did and no different. I also, unprompted, changed from USB to Ethernet cable and rebooted. No change.
I then purchased “PC Pitstop” which found and changed a number of faults/settings.
This appeared to double my speed from 300 to 600, but has since fallen back to 50kb/s.
I feel that there may be a problem with the modem. How can I be sure that VM are correct in their assessment? Is there any test I can perform?
Would welcome any ideas on where I go from here.

[Greebox]

I had a problem yesterday 20Mb dropped to 10Mb overnight. I tried several tests, the one on this site, http://www.speedtest.net and others all confirmed a halving of speed.

Tech Support asked me to reboot in Safe mode and run the quicktest on http://www.numion.com this confirmed slow download and as a result, they reregistered my modem and after a sequential boot (modem then PC) hey presto back to full 20Mb.

They seemed to think it was corrupted settings file on the modem, anyway whatever they did their end worked...

[xspeedyx]

What speed do you get if using gamesfiles.blueyonder.co.uk

[Albchiv]

Thanks Greebox for info. Speedtest.net confirmed my Dan Elwell results with a Download of 115kb/s but an Upload of 372.
Numion.com in safemode produced a down of 163 and an up of 388.
May have to go back to VM, but what does "re-registering" the modem entail?

---------- Post added at 19:46 ---------- Previous post was at 19:42 ----------

Thanks Darthlinux. Downloading a file started around a steady 12.6kB/sec then stuck at 6.6. As I did not have an hour to complete I cancelled!
What do you make of the Upload being far higher than my download speed?
Thanks.

[Rik]

What speed do you get if using gamesfiles.blueyonder.co.uk

I think the correct address is ftp://gamefiles.blueyonder.co.uk/

[zer0]

looks like they changed it
http://gamefiles.virginmedia.com/blueyondergames/demos/

[Greebox]

Thanks Greebox for info. Speedtest.net confirmed my Dan Elwell results with a Download of 115kb/s but an Upload of 372.
Numion.com in safemode produced a down of 163 and an up of 388.
May have to go back to VM, but what does "re-registering" the modem entail?

A call to Tech Support (151 on a VM phone line) and they remove and re-register the MAC address, resend the config files to the modem and you reboot everything - job done , or at least thats what happened with me.