> When it says 300mbs that means if I download something...

[mdk]

> When it says 300mbs that means if I download something it'll do 300mbs? 

If the car sales-person tells you that the Ferrari that you just purchased will perform at 300 Km/Hour, will you be able to achieve that speed driving to/from the nearest Timhortons?  Probably not, because there are speed-limits in the drive-through lane, the main streets, and the side-street that leads into your driveway.

Similarly, if you connect to a file-server that is "throttling" its outbound traffic (because it is trying to offer simultaneous, slower, downloads, rather than "one-person-gets-full-1000-Mbit"), you won't get the maximum speed that you're paying for.  For example, when I download updates to Adobe Reader from Adobe's web-site, I get only a steady 2 Mbits/second, even though my computer's network-adapter can receive 500 times faster.

Note that the Internet transmits data in "packets".  Each packet travels from your Shaw modem to your computer at either 10 or 100 or 1000 Mbits/second, but there are "gaps" between packets.  So, if you count packets-per-second, and multiply by the length (in bits) of each packet, you might get up to 300 Mbits/second. Compare to driving on a highway at 2 AM -- each vehicle is travelling at full speed, but the gaps between vehicles indicate that the highway has "excess capacity".

If you run the Shaw "SpeedTest" on a new laptop (with a fast wireless adapter), and again on an older desktop (with a 10/100 network-adapter), you'll see that the new laptop receives/sends much faster.  Add a 10/100/1000 network-adapter into your desktop, and try again.

[cygxanadu]

I don't get it either, I have 300mbps paying $52.50 but the speed test shows 165mbps DOWN, 12mbps UP, my computer is fast 3.2Ghz 8Gb RAM 512mb internal video, I cannot even watch a video and surf at the same time anymore, when I was paying $90 for 150mbps I had no issue, I could do both. Then My contract was almost expiring and a Telus Rep came by and gave me this great offer (they just finished installing Fiber Optic) I switched to Telus 50 FIBER OPTIC  for $85 a month plus 3 months free, and that was much better than 150mbps from Shaw, I was able to download music, watch Global News and surf at the same time on the same computer without hiccups. 

6 months later a Shaw Rep knocks on my door offers me Internet 300 for $52.50 a month,  who wouldn't pass those speeds up with a price like that. Those speeds were good for 3 months then it started to get slower and slower

I had a tech come here last week he switched out the modem he put an adapter on and said that the signal is too strong, isn't that a good thing where I'd be getting blazing fast speeds because of it, he said I should get a better computer I'll get better speeds WTF LMAO I just brushed off as he was an Beep about it. When he left it didn't really help much until and an hour later, and it was back to the way it was.

I get and email from Shaw that my current contract is up soon, they call me a loyal Customer, but they want to charge me $64 a month, how loyal is that when I do even get the speeds that I should be getting, as a matter of a fact I should have the better modem at NO EXTRA charge and still pay $52.50 like I am now.

Shaw knows what's going on, but they don't want to admit to it, they keep giving you the run around that YOUR (me) end is the issue. Because I'm only paying $52.50 a month for 300 it's like I am getting internet 75. They're throttling people's internet for what they're doing online.

If it's not Throttling then, is another terminology based on getting your internet slowed down, sure you can do a speed test it shows you great speeds but that's the algorithm kicking in (oh he's checking the speeds, let's show him nothing is wrong, and he'll just leave us alone)  

Yeah! Bring CBC Market Place to my place I'll show them what speeds I get when I check it, then what I am paying for, and then what my computer is not doing for the so-called Internet 300, I can make them look real bad at this point, but then the excuses come flying out from a Shaw rep (oh your Computer is old and slow) Then contact the Loyalty department and demand a refund for a years worth of Internet, even then they'll most likely offer 6 months. I have been a customer with Shaw since March 2016 minus the 6 months with Telus in 2017-2018.

I was even told from a past Shaw tech that they're lying to you, it's Shaw doing the dirty work. Nothing is wrong with our end(Shaw) it's your end (customer), just a simple scapegoat reason to get out of a bad situation that they know what they're doing.

I have been debating on going back to Telus for some time now, and staying with them so what if I have to pay a little more at least I know the speeds I am getting is what I am paying for.

I am done griping about this.

[mdk]

@cygxanadu -- Those speeds were good for 3 months then it started to get slower and slower.

While the other components of your computer are very "high-end", you have not mentioned anything about its disk-drive.

How old is it? It probably had a 1-year or 2-year replacement warranty.

Is it 5400 RPM? 7200 RPM? SSD (Solid State Device) ?

If you download the free version of the SPECCY software, and run it, select the "Storage" section, and look at the S.M.A.R.T. report. Do you see any "warning" or "bad" indicators? Is the number of Reallocated Sectors above zero? Any "Pending bad" sectors?

[cygxanadu]

I installed SPECCY all of my drives are in good order as indicated in green. 4 that are mounted 1 USB HDD, all the HDDs are over 5 years old 2 are 10 years plus not more than 12 years old.

Main HDD

WDC WD2500JD-22HBC0 ATA Device
Manufacturer Western Digital
Business Unit/Brand Enterprise/WD Raptor
Heads 16
Cylinders 30,401
Tracks 7,752,255
Sectors 488,392,065
SATA type SATA-I 1.5Gb/s
Device type Fixed
ATA Standard ATA/ATAPI-6
Serial Number WD-WCAL74998775
Firmware Version Number 08.02D08
LBA Size 48-bit LBA
Power On Count 3834 times
Power On Time 2230.1 days
Features S.M.A.R.T., AAM
Max. Transfer Mode SATA I 1.5Gb/s
Used Transfer Mode SATA I 1.5Gb/s
Interface SATA
Capacity 232 GB
Real size 250,059,350,016 bytes
RAID Type None
S.M.A.R.T
Status Good
Temperature 39 °C
Temperature Range OK (less than 50 °C)
S.M.A.R.T attributes
Attribute name                                    Real value       Current    Worst  Threshold    Raw Value       Status
01 Read Error Rate                                      0                 200           70                 51      0000000000     Good
03 Spin-Up Time                                       6000 ms       130          117               21       0000001770     Good
04 Start/Stop Count                                5,585               95            95                40       00000015D1     Good
05 Reallocated Sectors Count                  11                 199         199             140       000000000B     Good
07 Seek Error Rate                                     0                   200          200              51        0000000000     Good
09 Power-On Hours (POH)                  2230d 2h            27             27              0         000000D112    Good
0A Spin Retry Count                                  0                   100           100             51        0000000000     Good
0B Recalibration Retries                           0                   100           100             51        0000000000     Good 
0C Device Power Cycle Count              3,834                 97            97               0          0000000EFA     Good
C2 Temperature                                     37 °C               113            84               0          0000000025     Good
C4 Reallocation Event Count                   1                   199            199             0          0000000001     Good
C5 Current Pending Sector Count          1                   200            200             0          0000000001     Good
C6 Uncorrectable Sector Count              0                   200            200             0          0000000000     Good
C7 UltraDMA CRC Error Count               92                  200           253              0          000000005C     Good
C8 Write Error Rate / Multi-Zone Error Rate     0       200           200             51          0000000000    Good

Partition 0
Partition ID Disk #3, Partition #0
Disk Letter C:
File System NTFS
Volume Serial Number BA3DE9B8
Size 231 GB
Used Space 72 GB (31%)
Free Space 159 GB (69%)
Partition 1
Partition ID Disk #3, Partition #1
File System NTFS
Volume Serial Number F67E31EC
Size 541 MB
Used Space 459 MB (84%)
Free Space 82 MB (16%)

I hope you can figure something out?

[mdk]

@cygxanadu 

WDC WD2500JD-22HBC0 ATA Device
Manufacturer Western Digital
Business Unit/Brand Enterprise/WD Raptor
SATA type SATA-I 1.5Gb/s
Power On Count 3834 times
Power On Time 2230.1 days
Used Transfer Mode SATA I 1.5Gb/s
Capacity 232 GB  -- 250,059,350,016 divided by 1024, several times, is 232 times a large power of 10
Real size 250,059,350,016 bytes

S.M.A.R.T attributes
05 Reallocated Sectors Count 11
C2 Temperature 37 °C
C4 Reallocation Event Count 1
C5 Current Pending Sector Count 1
C7 UltraDMA CRC Error Count 92

Used Space 72 GB (31%)
Free Space 159 GB (69%)

I recommend that you replace this disk-drive. Soon.

After 2230 days (74 months), it has performed well. Similarly, I would replace automobile tires of that age.

A replacement "spinning" disk-drive would be capable of 6.0 Gb/s ("SATA-III"), rather than the current 1.5 Gb/s data-transfer mode. Of course, your motherboard would have to support SATA-III, but it probably supports SATA-II (3.0 Gb/s).

A replacement SSD (solid-state device) will also support SATA-III, but it will be even faster, because it has no moving parts that cause delay in each input/output access.

Free software, such as "Macrium Reflect" can make a "clone" (a byte-by-byte copy) of this disk-drive.

Currently, of the 250 GB capacity, you are using only 31%. So, buying a 250 GB SSD is under $50. It is getting difficult to find the smaller 120 GB SSDs -- and they probably more expensive than the 250 GB SSD.

Over time, your disk-drive has detected 11 "bad" sectors, and is using some "spare" sectors, instead of them. [Compare to the Canucks putting one of their "taxi-squad" of defensemen into the line-up, to replace the injured Alexander Edler.] That is an ominous sign that there may be more "soon-to-be-bad" sectors.

There is 1 sector that is "pending" to be substituted by one of the "spare" sectors. Maybe more, maybe soon.

For 92 times, the data read from your disk-drive has not matched the data written to your disk-drive. Not a good sign.

Bottom line: your computer will run noticeably faster with a new SSD. Upgrading now, rather than in a panic, after the disk-drive "deteriorates" some more, is preferable.