speed tests accurate ?

My internet connection was painfully slow through Linksys router. Bypassed and went through cable modem and Roadruner tech support reported no dropped data and a 1.6MB/s throughput. So router became suspect. I flashed the latest firmware update to it, cleaned out some popups and speed now is tolerable, BUT.... Checked throughput using cnet's online utility and 2wire.com, and they show 400KB/s. Linksys's tech support said those online tests are not very accurate and considered my problem fixed since speed seemed reasonable after updating router firmware and getting rid of popups. Question though is: Is something still wrong with router or computer causing a tested 400KB/s throughput which is 1/4 the throughput when connected directly through the cable modem ? Shouldn't it be showing something closer to 1.6MB ? I know the ISP is the bottleneck when getting out to the internet and not the router. But if the Linksys router (802.11B) is funky and causing the slow throughput, would it be worth it for me to try the new Netgear 802.11G router I just bought (and was going to take back if flashing the Linksys fixed the problem)? Or could I expect it also to just show 400 KB/s even though its a "G" capable of 54 MB/s, e.g. are the internet speed tests off by that much and I'm really getting close to 1.6MB/s through the LInksys ? Any opinions or wildass guesses would be helpful. Thanks. Bob

Reply to
bcarwell
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Shouldn't

Have you ran the same 2wire test with and without the router? This would give you a better picture of what the router is doing.

Reply to
Airhead

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I'll assume that the 1.6MB/s is really 1.6Mbits/sec. However, it's not clear if your 400KB/s is really 400KBits/sec or

400KBytes/sec. If it's bits, then you have some kind of major speed problem. If it's Bytes, then that equals 3.2Mbits/sec which is what you should normally be getting from a cable modem connection.

Most of the online speed tests vary in performance depending upon how many intermediate systems are between the test site and your cable modem. The best test is usually the one supplied by your cable modem vendor on their locally connected web pile. Who's your cable ISP?

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Shouldn't

Thanks for responding. I think it megabytes and kilobytes, so yes, it looked like the router was slowing things down. I ran test again on different machine through CNET and it shows 1.4MB/s, so I think it is the other machine (adware, spyware, etc.). On the different machine, internet speed is fine, so I think flashing/updating the firmware on the router did the trick and I'm just dealing with an older computer I need to cleanup. Thanks for the help. Seems like I'm okay again... (BTW, ISP is Road Runner). Bob

Reply to
bcarwell

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