Uverse 18 MB DSL

[waynezo]

I just upgraded from 3.0 dsl to 18 MB uverse dsl. I'm getting speedtest readings from 8 to 20 Mb and not stable. Uverse tech tested the line and got a stable reading of 13-15 Mb. Tech support said anti virus software can affect speed, is that true? My rig is about 6 yrs old. Is it possible it can't handle the speed? I'm testing with three sites, PC Pitstop, Speedtest.net, and Speakeasy.

My system,
Athlon XP2400 cpu
Gigabyte GA-7vaxp Rev 1.1 mb with promise onboard raid controller Bios Award F8
Serial No. : 010471933173101421sn0240904160
Kingston value ram 1536mb DDR pc3200 400mhz
Dual 80gig maxtor hd's 7200rpm ata 133 raid 0
Seagate 500GB and 250GB external hard drives
Artec 16X DVD-ROM
Cyberdrive 40X16X48 CDRW
Verbatim 2.4X DVD+RW/R
Liteon Superallwrite lightscribe 16/48 DVD/CDRW
ATI all in wonder 8500dv AGP primary video card
Radeon 9250 256MB PCI Secondary video card
2 HANNS-G 28" High Def LCD Monitor HG281
2 Hyundai 19" LCD Imagequest Monitors L90D+
Antec 430 watt true power ps
Ahanix platinum xp steel case
Windows XP Home SP3
Avast antivirus
Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall 4.3
Uverse Dsl 18 Mbps

Any advice will be appreciated.

[GroundZero3]

Have you tried to do a speedtest with the virus software off and see a difference?

Where are you doing the speedtest from site wise? Are you behind a router?

[RobRich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by waynezo

Windows XP Home SP3

WinXP can oftentimes benefit from some moderate TCP/IP tuning when dealing with broadband connections.

1. Download and launch SG TCP Optimizer:

SpeedGuide.net :: TCP Optimizer / Downloads

2. Select the network adapter being used for the broadband connection.

3. Select optimal settings, move the bandwidth slider to 18Mbps, apply changes, then reboot.

4. Test the connection speed. Hopefully it will be faster with more stable throughput.

You can dig deeper into the TCP/IP parameters with SG TCP Optimizer if interested, but the "optimal" technique usually works fine for basic tuning.

[RobRich]

BTW, I also recommend running the tweak test at DSLReports.com:

Tweaking for speed - dslreports.com

In particular, look for any retransmitted packets. A stable connection should generally have few, if any retransmits.

[waynezo]

Tweak Results

1. Your Tweakable SettingsReceive Window (RWIN): 1027840
Window Scaling: 4
Path MTU Discovery: ON
RFC1323 Window Scaling: ON
RFC1323 Time Stamping: OFF
Selective Acks: ON
MSS requested: 1460
TTL: unknown
TTL remaining: 42
TOS flags: none set
2. Test DownloadActual data bytes sent: 1024001
Actual data packets: 703
Max packet sent (MTU): 1500
Max packet recd (MTU): 1500
Retransmitted packets: 0
sacks you sent: 0
pushed data pkts: 83
data transmit time: 1.461 secs
our max idletime: 248.9 ms
transfer rate: 575127 bytes/sec
transfer rate: 4601 kbits/sec
transfer efficiency: 100%
3. ICMP (ping) check Target unpingable

If your IP could be pinged then we hit it with various streams to identify any loss, or exessive jitter from our server.

4. Notes and Recommendations
Choose RWIN between 169360 and 451140 (FAQ #586)
download/use DRTCP .. (FAQ #578)
Read the tweak FAQ

Observations:
Good data stream (no/few rexmits)

Observations:
Become pingable
if you need basic packet loss tests done
Check tweak FAQ

TCPoptimize helped.

Avast anti virus really slows down speedtest.net not so much the others.

My computer is behind the uverse modem/gateway

[waynezo]

Would I benefit by installing a Gigbit pci network card?

[GroundZero3]

That isn't going to help your internet speeds, how did the tech determine he was getting 13-15 Mb?

What is the model of the gateway you are using?

[waynezo]

The Gateway is 2wire. I'm getting good results now with Avast turned off and opera 10 as browser. My favorite browser is ff3 is there a tweak for ff3?

[waynezo]

Turned avast back on, still getting 17-18mb steady and sometimes 30-60 mb, but not with FF3. I think it is hogging the processor.

[GroundZero3]

Hrm interesting that avast would cause an issue like this. What scanning options do you have enabled on avast?