Virgin Media 10MB Woeful Performance

GreenMint · 18 Apr 2007 at 21:50

Hey all, having some serious issues with Virgin ever since the virgin takeover and i'm really not sure whats going on..

Web surfing is slow, comparable to 128kb ISDN at a lot of times, pictures take a while to come up on a lot of occasions.

I'm using a Linksys WRT54G router, i think default settings but wireless network is obviously passworded now.

Every time my Dad's laptop connects wirelessly, it basically knocks the connection out of Sync, making a router reset necessary.

I had problem last June, started using the NTL proxies which made a big difference, now they seem slower & more inefficient than nothing at all, whether i'm missing something in my router i don't know?

I tried calling the lovely helpful people at Virgin Media - Bombay Branch, and would have gotten more use dialing 118118 and singing sweet lullabies down the phone only to be hung up on!

Does anyone have any ideas/any useful settings thats might bring this woeful performance to life?

All download speeds, newsgroups, itunes, http dl's are fine, getting 1.4mb/sec+ just web surfing, youtube movies loading etc.. is woeful

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Robert · 18 Apr 2007 at 22:17

Try using the VM news groups

news.blueyonder.co.uk

then

blueyonder.support.access.hi-speed

They're really good.

GreenMint · 18 Apr 2007 at 22:28

Thats the thing mate, all newsgroups that i use etc.. are fine, its basically anything you see in IE/Mozilla, websites, embedded movies like youtube etc.. that are having difficulties

Robert · 18 Apr 2007 at 22:46

They are help groups which are run by VM. If you post there then a fairly good tech will check and advise you on any issues and can also book a tech if required.

snarloas1982 · 18 Apr 2007 at 22:47

im excatly the same here. newsgroups fly while browsing is terrible

GreenMint · 18 Apr 2007 at 23:39

Robert said:
They are help groups which are run by VM. If you post there then a fairly good tech will check and advise you on any issues and can also book a tech if required.

Ahh, i see, sorry, my bad, ty mate

Now to figure out how the hell to post on a newsgroup instead of just dl'ing stuff

Wingz · 19 Apr 2007 at 00:02

i hear that virgin are no longer using proxies so it maybe the cause.

Robert · 19 Apr 2007 at 06:21

Yes they are.

afraser2k · 19 Apr 2007 at 09:41

They aren't using transparent proxies in many areas and are turning them off now. The slow performance the original poster was having could be down to many things but they could try manually setting the proxy using one of the caches in the list here, though I don't know how up to date it is. Also uncheck "automatically detect settings" from IE connection page. It could be the proxy you're using is overloaded or just VM maintenance, is it just at a certain time of day or all day?

The router itself might be the problem, have you tried removing it and just having a direct connection from either the desktop or the laptop? There's also rebooting the cable modem itself, this is really just from the standard script that VM call centre puts you through so might as well try it before phoning again.

swanseajack · 19 Apr 2007 at 11:10

I'm on the 20meg service, and always use the proxies as if you just leave it at default then always get really slow, I just use firefox with the switch proxy tool to skip to a faster one.

GreenMint · 19 Apr 2007 at 11:32

afraser2k said:
They aren't using transparent proxies in many areas and are turning them off now. The slow performance the original poster was having could be down to many things but they could try manually setting the proxy using one of the caches in the list here, though I don't know how up to date it is. Also uncheck "automatically detect settings" from IE connection page. It could be the proxy you're using is overloaded or just VM maintenance, is it just at a certain time of day or all day?

The router itself might be the problem, have you tried removing it and just having a direct connection from either the desktop or the laptop? There's also rebooting the cable modem itself, this is really just from the standard script that VM call centre puts you through so might as well try it before phoning again.

I'mnot actually using a proxy right now, and getting a very slow direct connection through at all times, OCUK is about the only site that loads at a decent speed!

I've not removed the router yet due to a long mass of wires etc.. trying to find any guides that might help if that router has not all settings right but so far no luck

Resetting the router & cable modem have had no effect though

Avalon · 19 Apr 2007 at 12:39

Why not try connecting directly to the modem, if you still have slow speeds it's the VM side of things, if not it's your kit... least that way you know one way or another. Also check the router log's for events that lead up to the router going belly up. I assuem you've done a spyware/virus scan as well and had a look to see what outbound connections you have going on ?

swanseajack · 19 Apr 2007 at 22:15

What modem have you got? , I know the surfboard and Tearjet modems are out of date now and again can't handle the speeds.

You might want to change your MTU to 1500 and open more ports if your running XP, SP2 only allows 10 connections at a time.

Vicar · 19 Apr 2007 at 22:22

swanseajack said:
What modem have you got? , I know the surfboard and Tearjet modems are out of date now and again can't handle the speeds.

You might want to change your MTU to 1500 and open more ports if your running XP, SP2 only allows 10 connections at a time.

Its only the Motorola SB3100 Modems that cant handle 10meg and above connections.... just incase there are people reading this and saying omg I got a motorola Modem.... SB4100 and above are fine they can handle upto 28 Meg... the SB5100's prob again above the latter....

Just a point

Regards

Vic

ps no clue about Tearjet modems, lol....

swanseajack · 19 Apr 2007 at 22:37

Vicar said:
Its only the Motorola SB3100 Modems that cant handle 10meg and above connections.... just incase there are people reading this and saying omg I got a motorola Modem.... SB4100 and above are fine they can handle upto 28 Meg... the SB5100's prob again above the latter....

Just a point

Regards

Vic

ps no clue about Tearjet modems, lol....

Yeah sorry me bad, forgot that the SB4100 needed a firmware upgrade that should have been sent through the network to handle 10meg and above, still got my trusty SB4100 in the house but they won't let me use it as it's to easy to hack, so I have the NTL250.

afraser2k · 19 Apr 2007 at 23:30

I have the Surfboard 3100 and it can handle the 10 Mb I have from VM fine? At the moment I'm getting ~8 Mb from speedtest.net and maxing out downloading from Microsoft/some other sites. :confused:

Vicar · 20 Apr 2007 at 00:56

afraser2k said:
I have the Surfboard 3100 and it can handle the 10 Mb I have from VM fine? At the moment I'm getting ~8 Mb from speedtest.net and maxing out downloading from Microsoft/some other sites.

Thats cause SB3100 are capable of 10 download tops, you are lucky, most of those SB Surfboards must be in your area top out at that in a low DL speed area.... under BY or NTL you should have that exchanged at least a year ago, you wont see the new 20M speed with that modem at all. Just a warning dude....

afraser2k · 20 Apr 2007 at 09:17

Vicar said:
Thats cause SB3100 are capable of 10 download tops, you are lucky, most of those SB Surfboards must be in your area top out at that in a low DL speed area.... under BY or NTL you should have that exchanged at least a year ago, you wont see the new 20M speed with that modem at all. Just a warning dude....

NTL kept asking for £50 to exchange the modem, I told them no chance as I knew other people were getting them for free. Now they're wanting £25 for a 20 Mb capable modem so I think I'll just wait and drop my speed as I don't use Bit Torrent anymore.

Avalon · 20 Apr 2007 at 09:35

swanseajack said:
still got my trusty SB4100 in the house but they won't let me use it as it's to easy to hack.

Not true. They won't let you use it because they removed the facility for a cusomer to buy modems from them and have a reduced rental, in order to do this they had to offer to replace your modem as technically it belonged to you, you'd paid for it. If they were concerned you'd modify it then why bother as they've just given you the perfect oppertunity to have a spare modem to play with as well as giving you a new modem.

4100/4200 and 5100 modems still get issued depending on what comes in to the warehouse though the 4 series are reworks and the 5's are becoming rare (this is all from the former TW side).

The 3100 did not support 10mbit off the top of my head (and you've got to give me some grace here i'm remembering a 2+ year old internal email and can't give you a specific speed) it capped out a few mbit short despite the specs stating 20+ when it launched.

Back on topic Ivan did you connect the modem direct to one of your PC's and was it having the same problem ?