BT broadband problems - awfully slow web browser downloads but torrent speeds fine?

dwjoll · 16 Aug 2016 at 09:43

Hi folks

Wonder if you can help shed some light on my problem as I'm stumped.

I have standard BT broadband (can't get fibre at the moment) and connect at 6Mb which isn't great but expected.

However the problem is with my website download speeds, they are awful, and they tend to sit around 0-40 KB/s. Web browsing is slow, pages just hang and time out, streaming is a no go. It's pretty much unusable. Doesn't matter what time of day.

The weird thing is torrent download speeds are unaffected and they still max out at 650 KB/s.

This exact same problem happened a couple of months ago and BT sent me a new Home Hub 4 and that fixed it for 4-6 weeks. But it's back again.

Has anyone else experienced this? Is there a way I can fix this myself or is this BTs problem? I have been on the phone and live chat all week but they just make a few changes remotely and tell me to try it again. Nothing has worked.

I did some research and found some stuff related to DNS problems but can't be sure.

Orcvader · 16 Aug 2016 at 12:33

Change to Google's DNS servers and see if that helps. That could help the slow webpage loading as that relies on the DNS, the DNS is basically an address book to help browsers find the IP of the site.

Does this happen with other browsers (Chrome, Firefox, etc)?

dwjoll · 16 Aug 2016 at 12:38

Orcvader said:
Change to Google's DNS servers and see if that helps. That could help the slow webpage loading as that relies on the DNS, the DNS is basically an address book to help browsers find the IP of the site.

Does this happen with other browsers (Chrome, Firefox, etc)?

Do I do the DNS change on the router or PC? Yeah happens on any browser.

Orcvader · 16 Aug 2016 at 13:40

Router ideally so all devices connected to it can benefit but you can try it on the PC first, both will do the same thing.

KIA · 16 Aug 2016 at 18:57

Are all devices affected?

The BT Home Hub won't allow you to set custom DNS servers.

dwjoll · 16 Aug 2016 at 19:32

KIA said:
Are all devices affected?

The BT Home Hub won't allow you to set custom DNS servers.

Yeah all devices are affected.

I am running my tests over ethernet on my PC - it is the only thing connected to the Home Hub 4. I have disabled both wireless channels while I do this just to be sure.

Current ADSL line status is (this is expected)
Downstream: 6.398 Mbps
Upstream: 1.062 Mbps

Trace route
Tracing route to thinkbroadband.com [80.249.99.130]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms BThomehub.home [192.168.1.254]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 11 ms 10 ms 10 ms 31.55.186.184
5 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms 195.99.127.58
6 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms host213-121-193-165.ukcore.bt.net [213.121.193.165]
7 11 ms 10 ms 11 ms linx-gw2.thdo.ncuk.net [195.66.236.240]
8 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms po4-31.core-rs2.thdo.ncuk.net [80.249.97.85]
9 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms www.thinkbroadband.com [80.249.99.130]

Trace complete.

Torrent download speeds around 600 KB/s:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vp1s9r3wjzpghd0/torrent.pn...

Web browser download speeds sits around 50 KB/s (http://download.thinkbroadband.com/1GB.zip)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/snsmpmzhxgvrpun/chrome.png...

Latest http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html result:
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/button/14713...
The test results seem to be fluctuating up and down a fair bit...

KIA · 17 Aug 2016 at 17:04

thinkbroadband link doesn't work.

The BitTorrent download is multi threaded, which may explain why the throughput is faster than the single threaded Chrome download.

Try http://speedtest.btwholesale.com/

dwjoll · 17 Aug 2016 at 18:21

KIA said:
thinkbroadband link doesn't work.

The BitTorrent download is multi threaded, which may explain why the throughput is faster than the single threaded Chrome download.

Try http://speedtest.btwholesale.com/

Sorry I should have been paying more attention to the thinkbroadband links.

Here's some more testing I did today when I got in from work, both on my PC and Macbook.

On PC over ethernet (for comparison)
Speedtest
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/button/1471452651349293855.png

Ping to 8.8.8.8
Ping statistics for 8.8.8.8:
Packets: Sent = 100, Received = 71, Lost = 29 (29% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 26ms, Maximum = 27ms, Average = 26ms

Ping to router 192.168.1.254
Ping statistics for 192.168.1.254:
Packets: Sent = 100, Received = 100, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 1ms, Average = 1ms

On Macbook over wifi
Speedtest
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/button/1471452758629402355.png

Ping 8.8.8.8
--- 8.8.8.8 ping statistics ---

100 packets transmitted, 82 packets received, 18.0% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 26.884/30.763/31.659/0.887 ms

Ping router 192.168.1.254
-- 192.168.1.254 ping statistics ---

100 packets transmitted, 99 packets received, 1.0% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 3.091/5.742/6.607/0.567 ms

Seems to be more packet loss on PC over ethernet but to be honest I think that's just pot luck as there are times when the performance all of a sudden improves - seemingly at random.

Tried changing DNS - didn't work.
Yes it is affecting all devices.