Internet 600 slow

[BryanK]

Hello,

I recently upgraded to internet 600 from internet 300. I did a speed test before I changed out the modem and got ~300 Mbps. After I changed over modems, and did the unnecessarily long phone in to get it activated, I ran the speed test again and was getting ~250 Mbps. Why am I getting slower speeds? I did all of the troubleshooting steps for faster speeds and no luck. Please help!

Thanks

Bryan

[mdk · Accepted solution]

What troubleshooting steps have you tried?

Have you powered-off all the other wired/wireless devices on your home network, before running the test?

Do you still have the previous cable-modem? If it still is activated, what speed do you now get with it?

Check that the coaxial-cable is tightly-connected to the wall-outlet and to your replacement cable-modem. Maybe, try a different cable.

Check that the Ethernet cable is properly "seated" into the socket on the cable-modem and the socket on your computer. Maybe, try a different cable.

Power-off the cable-modem (disconnecting the AC power), and power-on it, to completely reset it. Then, check the speed.

Check that the Ethernet cable between the cable-modem and your computer is labelled as "CAT-5e" (or "CAT-6") -- take a close look at the lettering on the length of the cable, to ensure that you are NOT using "CAT-5" (certified only to 100 Mbits/second).

Always use an Ethernet cable when doing any speed-testing -- some WiFi adapters inside a computer cannot send/receive at 600 Mbits/second.

How fast is your computer? Any computer with less than a dual-core 2.0 Ghz processor cannot run the Shaw SpeedTest at full speed. Maybe, try a different computer.

Telephone Shaw, and ask the technician to remotely-connect to the cable-modem, to view the incoming signal-strength, and other things.

[BryanK]

Thanks for your reply. I have done the troubleshooting steps you’ve suggested and still the same. What I find strange is that I was getting 300Mbps before my upgrade and now I’m down to 250Mbps. Im fairly well versed in data cabling as I am an electrician and have had some training in IT.

Well I suppose my next step is to contact Shaw directly.

Cheers

[shaw-tony]

@BryanK that is very odd. Quickly checking your account, your modem is provisioned for 600 Mbps. The signal to your equipment looks solid with no errors as well. Are you noticing slow speeds over WiFi only or are direct ethernet connections to a desktop slow as well? Are you running a speed test at http://speedtest.shaw.ca/?

[BryanK]

I’m noticing slow speeds via wifi. I have the Shaw modem in bridge mode and have a cat5e cable to the back of my wifi router. All of my equipment is capable of handling 600Mbps+ speeds. The other thing I’ve noticed is when doing speed tests (on Shaw.ca) the speed is fairly consistent @250Mbps. Is there any settings on the modem that would be slowing it down? My routers firmware is up to date.

[mdk]

> The other thing I’ve noticed is when doing speed tests (on Shaw.ca) the speed is fairly consistent @250Mbps.

The real-time display from the Shaw Speedtest "smooths" the data, i.e,. 0 bits/second before you start the test, and 300 Mbps one second later, to display 150 Mbps as the "average" value.

Start the Windows Task Manager, switch to the Performance tab, and select the network graph.

Then, launch the test, and task-switch back to the Task Manager window, to see the "instantaneous" download speed.

Maybe, you are getting 300, at some milliseconds during the test.

[BryanK]

So now I’m getting 600Mbps. I just went thru the troubleshooting steps again. Resetting everything and doing the wired connection once more. I have no idea what has changed but you can’t argue with results.

Thanks guys for your help.

Cheers

[shaw-tony]

@BryanK glad to hear! No changes were made, likely the reset to all connections fixed it 😀

[Graphyte]

Hey Bryan, I upgraded to Internet 600 two weeks ago and the current speed tests are identical to what I had with Internet 300 a year ago (330 Mbps). I went through chat support and they said everything was set to 600 and it must be my equipment. 

I have CAT-5e cables, checked all the connections, tried both my desktop and laptop with a cable and get the same results everytime.

Both my devices are using the default on-board Realtek PCI-E GBE Family Ethernet Controller which seems to max out at 100Mbps (I'm not techy enough to figure out how it maxes at 100 Mbps but I can speed test at 330 Mpbs)

What network card are you using? 

[Graphyte]

I too am having issues getting to 600 Mbps. I spent an hour waiting on Shaw Chat only to be told it's not the Shaw equipment and it must be mine.

I had Internet 150 a few years ago when it was automatically boosted to 300 - the speed test after the upgrade was a consistently between 327 to 333 Mbps. I rechecked two years ago when I renewed my Shaw plans, and then a few times after that and still the Shaw speed test still resulted in 327 - 333 Mbps.

Two weeks ago I upgraded to Internet 600 and I installed the new Bluecurve modem. The speed test still remains at around 330 Mbps. I've used the ethernet cable to test both the desktop and laptop and have the same speed results for both devices. The older desktop is a Quad Core i5 running at 3.2 Ghz, the laptop is a year old Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop.

I've:

• unplugged and power cycled the modem
• checked the cables (am using the new one that came with the modem)
• tried two different CAT-5e network cables
• checked the network card settings for both devices and they are capable of 1Gbps
• installed the latest network card drivers and run the diagnostic tool for errors
• rebooted the desktop in safe-mode and speed tested again
• swore at everything for the last four hours

Something somewhere is holding my speed at 330 Mbps - it's been consistent for the last couple of years, through the Gateway Arris modem and now with the Bluecurve. Unfortunately, I don't know anyone who has a 600 Mbps service so I can test their device on my network. What now?