Fast speed - slow surfing

[Way2Go]

Hi there,

We've just switched from Sky to Virginmedia because of speed issues with the BT exchange.

Using various online 'test your broadband speed' web sites as a rough guide it showed Sky (using a BT line) as only managing 7MB download with 0.7MB upload which BT’s own ‘test my speed’ agreed with.

We’ve just had the 'Up to 30MB' Virginmedia package installed and using the same 'test your broadband speed' web sites shows speeds of approximately 29MB download and 2.8MB upload.

I appreciate that this is only a guide but having tried it on several web sites the ballpark figures are very similar. However, the strange thing is that the 'surfing experience' is almost identical in that the web pages still appear to take the same time to open as they did with only a 7MB download speed!!! Weird.

Was I being naive in expecting that a connection 2 to 3 times quicker would have enhanced my surfing experience and that web pages would have opened much quicker? It certainly doesn’t feel twice as fast - unfortunately.

W2G

PS. This is a test that I've just ran

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2011/04/18.png

[Chrysalis]

2 possible eplanations.

1 - speeds after a certian point will stop having a noticeable affect on web browsing speed, and in my opinion this point is actually quite low probably somewhere in between half a mbit and a couple of mbit, exceptions been heavy media sites like flickr.
2 - upload speeds and latency will have an affect on initial delay for website to respond and how fast images load one after another.

[Way2Go]

Thanks for the reply.

Makes you wonder why people spend a lot of money on faster and faster broadband if the surfing speed never gets any better.

Broadband is obviously faster than dialup but why would someone fork out for 50MB if they got similar speeds to 5MB?

[Stephen]

People on faster speeds are more likely to be using it for downloading stuff rather than trying to get a faster browsing experience.

[gstadt]

its not surfing the internet that you notice it really - its important for streaming movies/downloading music/multiple users.

[Chrysalis]

Thanks for the reply.

Makes you wonder why people spend a lot of money on faster and faster broadband if the surfing speed never gets any better.

Broadband is obviously faster than dialup but why would someone fork out for 50MB if they got similar speeds to 5MB?

Because they think it will speed up web browsing :)

although there is reasons 50mbit is better, multi user households especially with kids downloading stuff and of course people who do actual downloading, streaming etc. it all helps.

If I streamed iplayer on my adsl whilst it worked the latency was affected significantly, eg. 200ms during the streaming, on my 30mbit VM connection it doesnt budge at all. So it allows better multitasking for sure.

[Way2Go]

Ah . . . . thanks for that.

Looks like I was being naive then expecting images and pages to download quicker :-(

I don't download music or movies but may use the streaming movies/TV facility using my shiny new Sony BDP-S570B 3D Blu-ray with built-in wifi . . . . if I can get more than 2 bars.

Modem upstairs - TV/Blu-ray player downstairs.

Thanks again for the replies.

W2G

[danielf]

Ah . . . . thanks for that.

Looks like I was being naive then expecting images and pages to download quicker :-(

I don't download music or movies but may use the streaming movies/TV facility using my shiny new Sony BDP-S570B 3D Blu-ray with built-in wifi . . . . if I can get more than 2 bars.

Modem upstairs - TV/Blu-ray player downstairs.

Thanks again for the replies.

W2G

Another thing to bear in mind is the response speed of the actual web pages you visit. Your connection can't download things faster than the website can serve them up. If the site is slow to respond, it's slow to respond...

[TJS]

I think it depends on what browser you are using and its capability to render the web pages fast enough, I have watched the network monitor in activity monitor on my apple laptop, which shows the transfer rates over the network, when using safari web pages show arround 900 kb/s to 2,400 kb/s when loading, but when i try firefox 4.0 it usually averages about 250 - 500 on the same sites

[Chrysalis]

firefox can be very slow I agree.

[TJS]

I think it can be down to the hardware on the computer aswell and how capable it is at rendering web pages fast enough to keep up

[Way2Go]

I'm using IE8 - he said quietly - I've looked at some others but never really felt happy with them. I tried Chrome but had to run a patch to remove something which it buggered up . . . . can't remember what it was now.

[Chrysalis]

For raw loading speed especially on pages with many images sadly seems IE is able to thrash both opera and firefox especially on content not cached, however opera is blitzy fast when the page content is cached. (repeat visits).

[Way2Go]

I think it can be down to the hardware on the computer aswell and how capable it is at rendering web pages fast enough to keep up

I don't think it's down to that as I've recently bought a new PC :-

Intel Core i7 870, ASUSTeK P7P55D-E Mobo with 4GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 460 SE, Windows 7 Home Premium (x64), Direct X 11, 1 x SAMSUNG HD103SJ 1TB SATA hard drive, 1 x WDC WD10EARS-22Y5B1 1TB SATA hard drive, several USB 2.0/USB 3.0 connections, 1 x ATAPI iHAS124 B ATA Internal DVD reader/writer, 1 x Buffalo BR-X816U2 MediaStation 8X External Compact Blu-ray Writer.

[Chrysalis]

same board as me :) I have the i5 750 cpu tho. 8gig ram. 8800gt nvidia. The problem with all browsers is they dont use multi threading so they can get at times cpu bound as they only need to max 1 cpu core to do that, in that regard I think browser dev's need to get with the times and utilise multi cpu threading. Thankfully on this cpu it isnt a problem that happens much, it did get cpu bound a moderate amount of time on my c2d 6420 tho.

[TJS]

same board as me :) I have the i5 750 cpu tho. 8gig ram. 8800gt nvidia. The problem with all browsers is they dont use multi threading so they can get at times cpu bound as they only need to max 1 cpu core to do that, in that regard I think browser dev's need to get with the times and utilise multi cpu threading. Thankfully on this cpu it isnt a problem that happens much, it did get cpu bound a moderate amount of time on my c2d 6420 tho.

safari does multi threading as both cpu cores on my macbook show load, but im not sure about the windows version

[AndyCalling]

FYI IE9 uses multi-core cpu well in Win7.

Web surfing will not see any speed improvements beyond a 2 meg connection. This does not include streaming over the web, which will see a boost, but surfing normal web pages won't.

Things you can do to help speed up web pages:

1) Use the latest version of flash with a vid card that will provide hardware accel. Update JAVA too and any other web plug-ins you use.
2) User a hardware accel. browser like IE9 with a suitable vid card to improve rendering speed.
3) Make sure your virus/adware kit isn't a drag. Windows Security Essentials seems to work fast if yours doesn't.
4) You can fiddle with TCP/IP settings. If you're using Vista you will have to do this as you will likely keep getting dumped to restricted TCP/IP settings due to its twitchy tuning. See my other threads on tuning TCP/IP in Vista and Win7. Use DR TCP if using XP.
5) You can tweak your web browser's registry settings to allow it to open more simultanious connections to web sites than HTTP spec technically allows, downloading them faster and making more use of your fat VM broadband pipe. It is possible that some web pages will refuse to load however, as you are breaking the spec and some servers may not like this. Details on how to do this with your particular web browser should be on the web somewhere, I remember it was possible in IE.

When you start to notice the speed differences between UK web sites a lot then you have to remember that servers and site coding can influence the speed and this could be what you're seeing. If they are the bottle neck then you'll just have to wait for the world to move on, you've maxed out reality unfortunately and so you just have to sit back and enjoy your internet as is.

[pip08456]

Being the scrouge you are I'm sure you're right. TCP Optimiser (http://download.cnet.com/SG-TCP-Optimizer/3000-2155_4-10415840.html) now works across all windows platforms, you'll like it - it's FREE!:D

[Chrysalis]

safari does multi threading as both cpu cores on my macbook show load, but im not sure about the windows version

have they ever both showed above 50% load at once tho?

sometimes in single threaded apps you will see multi core usage but ultimately only able to max out the equivelent of 1 core, so sometimes I will see a single threaded app take 4 cores to 25%.

[TJS]

have they ever both showed above 50% load at once tho?

sometimes in single threaded apps you will see multi core usage but ultimately only able to max out the equivelent of 1 core, so sometimes I will see a single threaded app take 4 cores to 25%.

Ah, thats a point actually the cpu load only goes to about 100% for that app (on a 2 core mac you can go up to 200% cpu usage)

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2011/04/12.png
* running peacekeeper browser benchmark

[AndyCalling]

Being the scrouge you are I'm sure you're right. TCP Optimiser (http://download.cnet.com/SG-TCP-Optimizer/3000-2155_4-10415840.html) now works across all windows platforms, you'll like it - it's FREE!:D

Ooo, nice catch! I do like it, being as cheap as I am. :)~

I had most of the tweaks covered but it has a couple more and has a nice user interface.

One thing to note, the Superhub does cope with ECN (I know, wonders will never cease...) so you can enable that on top of the 'optimized' settings in this app. Just remember to switch it off for EA games. This setting does not need a restart whatever the app says when you change it.

If you don't want to go through the dialogue box to switch ECN on and off for EA games then my batch file (give it a .cmd filename extention such as 'ECN.cmd') is still handy to stick on your desktop. Here it is again:

@echo off
set /p choice="Allow ECN? [y/n] >"
if '%choice%'=='y' (netsh int tcp set global ecncapability=enabled) else netsh int tcp set global ecncapability=disabled
netsh int tcp show global
pause

This with 'TCP Optimizer' makes the best system for tweaking Vista/Win7 TCP stacks as far as I can see. Time for a sticky post perhaps?

[EDIT] The 'if' line in my code is being split on my display, it is a long line. The following line should be 'netsh int tcp show global' so make sure you don't split the 'if' line above it.

[pip08456]

Ooo, nice catch! I do like it, being as cheap as I am. :)~

I had most of the tweaks covered but it has a couple more and has a nice user interface.

One thing to note, the Superhub does cope with ECN (I know, wonders will never cease...) so you can enable that on top of the 'optimized' settings in this app. Just remember to switch it off for EA games. This setting does not need a restart whatever the app says when you change it.

If you don't want to go through the dialogue box to switch ECN on and off for EA games then my batch file (give it a .cmd filename extention such as 'ECN.cmd') is still handy to stick on your desktop. Here it is again:

@echo off
set /p choice="Allow ECN? [y/n] >"
if '%choice%'=='y' (netsh int tcp set global ecncapability=enabled) else netsh int tcp set global ecncapability=disabled
netsh int tcp show global
pause

This with 'TCP Optimizer' makes the best system for tweaking Vista/Win7 TCP stacks as far as I can see. Time for a sticky post perhaps?

Glad you like it, I'm good at finding good free apps (no pop-ups spyware, adware etc.:D)

This (http://www.dropbox.com/features) is another good free one. Don't download it from there though, use this link (http://db.tt/uJP4xcM) and we both get an extra 250Mb free!

Any more you'd like?

[AndyCalling]

Glad you like it, I'm good at finding good free apps (no pop-ups spyware, adware etc.:D)

This (http://www.dropbox.com/features) is another good free one. Don't download it from there though, use this link (http://db.tt/uJP4xcM) and we both get an extra 250Mb free!

Any more you'd like?

I use Sky Drive.

I'm pretty good with free myself. I don't do adware, and go open source mostly. The only paid stuff on my PCs is Windows 7 (and inclusive Windows Live stuff), games and the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Except of course drivers and apps included with hardware, everything else is free, legal and ad free.

I admit that I'd need to buy an OCR package if I hadn't got an old cut-down copy of Omnipage with a Canon scanner in the past. Since I don't get updates for this aging edition however, I'm watching the development of open source OCR which is coming along well.

I did buy Poweramp for my Android mobile phone as it's the only decent player with an equalizer for Android 2.2 phones, but nothing else on that is paid. There are some ads in a few free Android apps though, but they're not too bad on Android phones and most apps I have are ad free.

[Way2Go]

Many thanks for the feedback - much appreciated.

W2G

[cook1984]

2 possible eplanations.

1 - speeds after a certian point will stop having a noticeable affect on web browsing speed, and in my opinion this point is actually quite low probably somewhere in between half a mbit and a couple of mbit, exceptions been heavy media sites like flickr.
2 - upload speeds and latency will have an affect on initial delay for website to respond and how fast images load one after another.

You forgot option 3 - VM are *****.

In particular their DNS servers are very slow. Try using Google's and see if that helps.