Virgin media throttling openvpn & p2p any SH3.0 work arounds ?

R3X · 30 Dec 2019 at 01:24

Hi anyone experiencing the VM hub 3.0 faults with torrents and vpn usage?

I get capped to like 90% of my speed when I use torrents like ubuntu during modem only mode even with no VPN in use.

When I had hub 2.0 with vpn all was fine and at full speeds but its now officially dead.

Any VPNs that get around this or solutions to the hub 3 issues that I can try ?

Ok 3rd re-edit update: looks like I just had 2 duff hub 3 routers ! 3rd time is a charm since its
working much better in modem only mode, going to still double check signal and wiring and
make sure its good with Virgin support team.

Avalon · 1 Jan 2020 at 14:13

Stop and think about this logically, what possible interest do VM have in throttling you at 90% of your maximum? It’s a pointless exercise and one they publicly have made a point of stating they don’t do. You are using a variable P2P file transfer via a variable VPN service who likely have multiple servers used by thousands of users with variable load and connecting to it via a single threaded client that is well known to have scale issues. As you point out, when you moved to another VPN provider you got full speed, so why blame VM?

R3X · 1 Jan 2020 at 16:06

Avalon said:
Stop and think about this logically, what possible interest do VM have in throttling you at 90% of your maximum? It’s a pointless exercise and one they publicly have made a point of stating they don’t do. You are using a variable P2P file transfer via a variable VPN service who likely have multiple servers used by thousands of users with variable load and connecting to it via a single threaded client that is well known to have scale issues. As you point out, when you moved to another VPN provider you got full speed, so why blame VM?

Yes you are right, its a a confusing situation but I agree I don't think believe virgin are throttling VPN or p2p at all I just reckon its their hub 3 and the intel puma chipset flaw causing the issues instead.

Am still going to test it now that I got my new hub 3.0 here.

Still if anyone has noticed the same issues it would be nice for confirmation on my findings.

Rainmaker · 1 Jan 2020 at 16:24

R3X said:
Ok update. fixed the issues, modem mode in hub 3.0 is pants I had to go back to Router mode to fix all my VPN and download issues, modem mode on the hub3 restricts the amount of connections which is the opposite of hub 2.0 and before hubs.

Interesting. I can't say I've bumped into this on my setup (I pull 540Mbps over VPN in modem mode). What's the maximum number of connections you found possible?

R3X · 1 Jan 2020 at 16:37

Rainmaker said:
Interesting. I can't say I've bumped into this on my setup (I pull 540Mbps over VPN in modem mode). What's the maximum number of connections you found possible?

Not tried any more then the default settings in qbittorent program, global max connections still set to 500 and max connections per torrent 100 for now. Randomized tcp/udp port, with upnt/nat port forwarding to my router ticked also. Even correctly port forwarding makes no difference my end, think its better
with default settings oddly.

Its hard sometimes to spot the fault though since when the connection drops during torrenting or heavy file download to 1-2mbps it can be random, it sometimes resets itself or starting a website or something like speedtest can kinda reset the glitch or free up the buffers in the router then it jumps back to full speeds.

It feels like its just the intel puma chipset at fault in the hub 3, although could be wrong still but others on the vm forums suggested similar.

Which VPN do you use ? I found Astrill vpn to give me fuller speeds back under router mode but will test others out since that one does not support pfsense.

Rainmaker · 1 Jan 2020 at 16:57

With the greatest of respect, and forgive me if I'm wrong, but your post has a whiff of 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing' about it. If you're using a VPN then you absolutely don't want UPnP enabled for your router, it's a security risk and can lead to leaks over your real WAN/ISP IP. If your VPN provider offers port forwarding, then you can use that port alone in qBittorrent and it'll work but you definitely don't want to be advertising it to your router!

Your VPN provider doesn't need to 'support' pfSense. Provided it uses a connection method that pfSense supports (OpenVPN, IPSEC) then it'll work.

The PUMA6 chipset is deeply flawed, but it relates to latency and bufferbloat when its buffers fill and become congested. It won't affect download speeds per se, and certainly won't have any impact on connection limits in a torrent client. VM issued a patch for the chipset earlier this year anyway (for what little that was worth).

It sounds more like a local machine issue, with either iowait (bottlenecked transfer to storage, or waiting on RAM/CPU resources) - perhaps caused by a hardware bottleneck or perhaps by an artificial one like AV software.

R3X · 1 Jan 2020 at 17:12

Rainmaker said:
With the greatest of respect, and forgive me if I'm wrong, but your post has a whiff of 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing' about it. If you're using a VPN then you absolutely don't want UPnP enabled for your router, it's a security risk and can lead to leaks over your real WAN/ISP IP. If your VPN provider offers port forwarding, then you can use that port alone in qBittorrent and it'll work but you definitely don't want to be advertising it to your router!

Your VPN provider doesn't need to 'support' pfSense. Provided it uses a connection method that pfSense supports (OpenVPN, IPSEC) then it'll work.

The PUMA6 chipset is deeply flawed, but it relates to latency and bufferbloat when its buffers fill and become congested. It won't affect download speeds per se, and certainly won't have any impact on connection limits in a torrent client. VM issued a patch for the chipset earlier this year anyway (for what little that was worth).

It sounds more like a local machine issue, with either iowait (bottlenecked transfer to storage, or waiting on RAM/CPU resources) - perhaps caused by a hardware bottleneck or perhaps by an artificial one like AV software.

thanks had no idea about that UPnp issue, I usually set it off and set up PF through the VPN this is just ubuntu testing for now.

I will double check the pfsense thing with the provider but they did tell me they can offer no support on it, guess one issue at a time.

It is quite possible its a fault within my system or settings but my setup worked 100% flawless with hub 2.0(in modem mode) a week ago and there are several other people who had the same exact issue I faced here with hub 3:

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Speed/My-350Mb-connection-is-throttled-to-10Mb/td-p/3953746

R3X · 2 Jan 2020 at 12:44

Ok just when I thought I was going mad, 3rd replacement hub 3.0 appears much better and working in modem mode. Guess 2 faulty Hub 3.0s can happen.
Must be rotten luck !

Am still going to triple check signal and stats and cabling and try some other VPNs since it felt like Astrill performed better then ivancy, nord, air and mullvad especially with http download files and speedtest and torrents overall but that could just be since Astrill is one of the most expensive VPNs going so perhaps not as much users and plenty of bandwith to spare perhaps.

Rainmaker · 2 Jan 2020 at 18:24

If you still have Mullvad, use WireGuard instead. It’s much faster than OpenVPN, especially on Linux but on any system really. It’s multithreaded for a start, unlike OpenVPN.

R3X · 3 Jan 2020 at 01:00

Rainmaker said:
If you still have Mullvad, use WireGuard instead. It’s much faster than OpenVPN, especially on Linux but on any system really. It’s multithreaded for a start, unlike OpenVPN.

Great idea, was just comparing different VPN speeds, mullvad openvpn sofware was 3mbps, so was air on eddie client, astrill client openvpn mode 20mbps
(my package speed)

My mullvad client won't open oddly some software conflict I think, but am intrigued if wireguard can make up the difference.

Still a mystery why the speed difference between these vpns, again not 100% sure its my wiring modem, line fault or config but at least modem mode + astrill has good speeds, tempted to try express vpn also meant to be one of the fastest out there I hear.

edscdk · 3 Jan 2020 at 05:06

10% differenc in something like that is just some overhead you are not allowing for not throttling

R3X · 20 Feb 2020 at 13:25

Just wanted to update my issues with Virgin Media hub 3 and my torrent speed drop.

Thanks again too Rainmaker member who also suggested I give WireGuard and Mullvad a try, It fixed all my odd speed drop issues when using torrents.

I did have to disable uTP and switch to TCP protocol in my torrent app and switch to downloading to SSDs for better performance also, but I no longer get any
Odd speed drop behaviour when using torrents now that I stopped using OpenVPN.

Back in Modem mode and it works perfectly fine directly connected to my PC with mullvad port forwarding.

Now to figure out which is the best route to take, literally.

Rainmaker · 20 Feb 2020 at 18:34

Glad you got it sorted R3X. The uTP is literally a throttling algorithm so you're right to disable it.

Rainmaker · 21 Feb 2020 at 22:44

Out of curiosity I fired up a Mullvad WireGuard instance on my Threadripper desktop. Bear in mind this is at peak time for both VM and Mullvad:

That'll do, pig. That'll do.

You shouldn't have any issues.

R3X · 4 Mar 2020 at 14:49

Rainmaker: You are so lucky to get during peak times, I still have my high utilization fault so barely get 10-15 Mbps in evenings

Do you think it's OK to run the hub 3 in router default mode and still have it connected to pfsense or Opnsense ?

I have uPnP switched off on my hub 3 but just wondered if this is double nat and maybe it causes any other issues while under a VPN.

Ideally its not nice, but family need net and v6 needs to update and Opnsense and WireGuard learning is going to be trial and error with a learning curve.

Rainmaker · 4 Mar 2020 at 15:56

R3X said:
Rainmaker: You are so lucky to get during peak times, I still have my high utilization fault so barely get 10-15 Mbps in evenings

Do you think it's OK to run the hub 3 in router default mode and still have it connected to pfsense or Opnsense ?

I have uPnP switched off on my hub 3 but just wondered if this is double nat and maybe it causes any other issues while under a VPN.

Ideally its not nice, but family need net and v6 needs to update and Opnsense and WireGuard learning is going to be trial and error with a learning curve.

Don't run two routers together - that's double NAT as you say, and it will cause you problems. You can use policy based routing in *sense to have the V6 boxes avoid the VPN, so that the apps and such still work. According to VM any area with 550Mbps is meant to be congestion free, so if you're on a >500Mbps tarrif and they're claiming congestion get on the phone and ask for a monthly discount.

R3X · 4 Mar 2020 at 18:25

Rainmaker said:
Don't run two routers together - that's double NAT as you say, and it will cause you problems. You can use policy based routing in *sense to have the V6 boxes avoid the VPN, so that the apps and such still work. According to VM any area with 550Mbps is meant to be congestion free, so if you're on a >500Mbps tarrif and they're claiming congestion get on the phone and ask for a monthly discount.

ahh had a feeling wasn't the best idea, what issues do you think I would get out of interest ? Feels everything app and website wise seem to be working at the moment. I have tested for ip and dns leaks and that seems to be fine also.

No 500Mbps tarrif, id be lucky to get that on my street but sure I have informed VM about all my issues so will be asking for discounts now.

Rainmaker · 4 Mar 2020 at 19:08

Yes if there's a VM fault reference for congestion, you can call and demand (nicely) a monthly discount until it's resolved. Say you're not getting what you pay for and you wish to have a discount until that is no longer the case. If you already have the fault reference then all the better. The VM forum and Cable Forum can be handy here, so try Google (Virgin congestion fault POSTCODE). Double NAT can play havoc with gaming and streaming services, consoles, VPNs, SSL sites and services (you've added a non-verifiable link into the chain), and especially incoming connections. Avoid at all costs.

R3X · 5 Mar 2020 at 12:54

Rainmaker said:
Yes if there's a VM fault reference for congestion, you can call and demand (nicely) a monthly discount until it's resolved. Say you're not getting what you pay for and you wish to have a discount until that is no longer the case. If you already have the fault reference then all the better. The VM forum and Cable Forum can be handy here, so try Google (Virgin congestion fault POSTCODE). Double NAT can play havoc with gaming and streaming services, consoles, VPNs, SSL sites and services (you've added a non-verifiable link into the chain), and especially incoming connections. Avoid at all costs.

That certainly can add to the already list of problems back to modem mode it is, thx yes will message one of the VM staff he is already aware of my high congestion problem, lets see what discount I could possible get.

darael · 8 Mar 2020 at 01:09

Although you're well under the minimum speed guarantee, do bear in mind that Virgin Media only have to give you 50% of the advertised broadband speed. I was slapped in the face with this recently when I complained my 200Mbps connection was only showing as 80Mbps - after being laughed at by the advisor on the phone who then asked me what speed did I expect, I replied "the speed that I signed up for and pay for". The advisor then told me that they only have to give me 50% of my speed, at which point I pointed out to him that I was getting less than 50% as indicated on my speed tests.

A little more information for you: https://www.virginmedia.com/shop/broadband/speeds

The actual speed of your service may vary, but for new customers and existing customers who change their broadband services on or after 28th February 2019, we now provide a minimum download speed guarantee to your Virgin Media Hub. This is 50% of the advertised speed for your broadband service on the date you placed your order.