download speed

[oldshep]

i have a new laptop with windows vista, i'm on btinter and it is an advent computer 5302 model, but my download speed is slow can someone give me or recommend a free download to speed it up. I have no viruses or crap on it , please help an oldie who is trying his hardest to catch p with you young uns. TA LA

[Mark v1.966]

Speed depends very much on your line quality, as modern computers and routers will support much faster transfer speeds than an ADSL line, so changing computer settings isn't the place to start. I'd recommend changing ISP first of all. If you can't get cable in your area, you may still be lucky enough to have an ADSL exchange with LLU, (local loop unbundling), which means ISPs other than BT can install their own equipment and offer much better speeds, (for less than BT too). O2 and Be both use ADSL2+ in LLU exchanges, which means you can actually get 8meg sync speeds on an 8meg package a couple of miles from the exchange, (or more if you are prepared to pay a bit extra), whereas an ordinary ADSL connection would be about half that at the same distance. (From personal experience I can tell you that O2 customer service is as different from BT's as the proverbial chalk is from cheese too).
If you haven't already done so, check your synchronisation speed on the router page. In case you don't know how, type 192.168.1.254 in the URL address field in your browser and hit 'Enter' to get to your settings pages. Sync speed shows the true theoretical maximum which your line can support. This is normally well below the advertised "up to 8meg" which ISPs boast, unless you're very close to the exchange or use ADSL2+, as previously mentioned. If you switch the router off and on again, you will get a snapshot of the sync speed each time it resets. It should be almost constant at all hours, unless there are faults somewhere from your house to, (or at), the exchange. Online speedtesters measure throughput. This will typically be around 70-80% of sync speed, although some test sites are wildly optimistic and show impossible figures higher than the sync speed, (thinkbroadband.com is one of the most reliable). Unlike sync speed, it's normal for throughput to vary a bit, particularly at peak times, and especially if BT aren't providing enough backhaul capacity at the exchange to cope with the number of broadband subscribers they've signed up. Mine varies by around 500-700kbps at most, (rather less than 10%). If you record wide fluctuations, (and especially connection drops), outside of peak hours, there is most likely a fault on the line somewhere between your house and the exchange. A decent ISP will run proper diagnostic tests to check line quality, (attentuation, packet loss etc) upon request. They'll ask you to plug your router into the test socket first. Some houses still don't have these, but if you have an NT5 master socket, remove the split cover and plug your router directly into the test socket behind, (so bypassing any extension wiring), reset your router, and check your sync speed again to make sure wiring faults within your house aren't causing problems. Some houses even have the redundant ancient bell wire in the main socket still, and this causes a substantial drop in speed unless removed, or you install something to prevent it interfering, such as an interstitial faceplate instead.
If you use wireless, that will knock around 20-30% off your speed, and even more if you have a lot of competing wireless routers in your area. Changing the wireless channel from its default, (accessible through the router settings pages), can help a bit if this is the case. Cordless phones and microwave ovens can also interfere. Early BT Homehubs, (they're actually routers, so it's very misleading of BT to call them that, hubs being a different thing altogether), have very poor wireless signals, causing slow speeds and connection problems. The latest ones they're offering are good, but they cheekily demand a lot of money for existing customers to upgrade. If I were still with BT, I'd threaten to leave them unless they gave me a replacement for free. Using an ethernet cable connection instead will give the maximum possible transfer speed from router to computer anyway. (By the way, if you are running throughput tests on Speedtest.net you won't see any difference in speed between a wireless and an ethernet connection, but it's just a quirk of that particular site).
Finally, if you've checked everything else, and all is as good as it's going to get with your ADSL line, and you choose to remain with BT as your ISP for masochistic reasons, you can download TCP Optimizer from here:-

TCP Optimizer Download - Softpedia

and run it to get the best settings for your TCP stack. The improvement's not likely to be massive, because, as I said at the beginning, the bottleneck is almost always on the exchange/line quality side, but it will give the best settings for that connection. I hope I've not been telling you what you already know, but it's better to err on that side than assuming the opposite, and it might be useful information for someone else reading this anyway. If you're not sure what terms like TCP stack and backhaul really mean, just Google for more information, or go directly to Wikipedia and look them up there.

[oldshep]

thanks very muc for all that info mark, i really didn''t know any of the stuff you mentioned, i will be changing to o2 cos my phone is with o2. Firstly i will try what you said about telling em i will leave unless they do what you suggest, when i came off wireless and went dirct my speed increased massivley, once again TA LA i appreciate it. ps ireally really am that green on these things.

[Mark v1.966]

I wouldn't expect changing your router would make a lot of difference. If you run a speed test, (not on Speedtest.net, obviously), when connected wirelessly with your laptop right next to the router, then any problems caused by a weak signal won't be relevant. If you have a lot of competing routers around you, then that will still slow your transfer speeds however, and you may not even be able to see all of the other routers by simply clicking on 'Wireless connections' as some may be stealthed. (I've stealthed mine). You'd have to use software like 'Wi-Spy', (not free), to diagnose if electromagnetic interference from other sources is causing problems. On my 7Mb/s throughput, I lose about 2Mb/s using wireless, but 5Mb/s is fine for watching things like BBC iPlayer, even in high definition, and use ethernet when I want most speed. If you are losing the same sort of percentage, then that's just the price of (b/g) wireless I'm afraid. By the way, you should, if you haven't already done so, change your wireless security to WPA, (or WPA2 if you have the option). BT routers use WEP as default, to ensure compatibility with older PCs, and it's easier to crack than a wren's egg. The options are available in the router settings pages.
The new 802.11n standard wireless should be a lot quicker than its predecessor 'g', but requires a compatible router. As your laptop is new, it may have 'n' wireless, (although retailers have a nasty habit of offloading old stock onto people they think won't know the difference). Moving the cursor over the wireless connection icon on the 'Network connections' page should tell you this*. Obviously you need to check first before you make any decision, assuming you really need fast wireless. I checked with O2 a month or two ago, and they didn't provide 'n' standard routers then, although that may change soon, whereas BT does with their latest Homehub. Nevertheless, using 'g' standard and ADSL2+ is likely to be faster than using an 'n' standard router wirelessly on an ordinary ADSL line, unless you're close to your exchange, and as I mentioned, unless you're locked into a BT contract, I'd consider switching anyway, just to get decent customer service. As you have an O2 line already, you'd probably get a discount for having them as your ISP too. Check that they can offer ADSL2+ though, because if your exchange isn't LLU enabled, they have to lease BT's own servers and can't offer any improvement.
Age is no barrier to understanding IT unless you convince yourself it's going to be, (I'm 50, and only bought my first PC two years ago). It's more a question of having the time, inclination, and patience to learn, so good luck, and remember that there's plenty of help available if you know where to look. Don't accept the first answer you find as being necessarily correct, but check in several different places any advice that might cause problems if ambiguous, or just plain wrong, and set an extra system restore point before making any changes. This applies to using software like 'TCP Optimizer' too, even though it backs up your settings for you. The 'belt and braces' approach gives you extra protection.

*Just in case that only shows your current connection set up, it would be advisable to check your laptop's wireless capabilities in the 'device manager'. There are different ways of getting to this, and as I use XP, (because it's about 40% faster processing than Vista), your pathway might be slightly different. You should find it via something like:-

Start > Control Panel > Performance and Maintenance > System > Hardware Tab > Device Manager > Network Adapters

If you're in luck, after your adapter, e.g. Broadcom, it will say 802.11b/g/n