Once again, Chris, thanks for taking the time for a full explanation of how things work. Makes sense, but I hadn't thought it would make such a difference.
>Hmm... if you are seeing that wild of a different between tests, then >I'd either think something else is sucking up your bandwidth Okay, so I turned off file/printer sharing and quit DropCopy. I stopped scheduled mail pickup on CE. I quit Skype on my desktop. Speedtests were much more consistent - varying by only about 400 kbps. >You can test for packet latency by doing a ping test. Ping some >server that you trust to be on a solid connection (I tend to ping >either google.com or apple.com). Take a look at the return time on >the packets, see if they vary wildly. Also look to see if any dropped >(failed to return). If you are having either problem, and a power >cycle doesn't cure it, I'd report it to the ISP as it indicates a >connection problem of some kind. Ping tests came back very consistent. > >Also, you can try a different speed test server. I tend to like >Speakeasy's, but the point really is to try a few different ones and >see if you get similar results as you are currently seeing. Well! What a difference a tester makes! Laptop is now slightly faster than the desktop according to Speakeasy (3800 kbps > 4250 kbps) even after several comparison trials. I turned everything back on one by one and all is still consistent and fast according to Speakeasy: 4150 kbps supposedly on the laptop! Now, this all sounds like it was simply the speedtest that I was using - however, the first test I did this afternoon, when I felt like the laptop was too slow, was to Refresh my homepage on each machine simultaneously and then watch which one won. The desktop was approx 3 times faster - so I then decided to time each with a stopwatch. I started with the desktop and it took 14" to Refresh the first time - which seemed extremely long - so I tried again and then it took 4". It was at that point that I remembered about speedtest, decided to start testing and discovered the inconsistencies. I just tried this timing test again and the same thing happened - 21", 12", 4" and 10" download times on the desktop while Speakeasy was testing at around 4150 kbps before and after. So, according to Speakeasy, connection speed has become more consistent from test to test and from machine to machine, but downloading webpages has not. My other speedtest (an ISP tester)is less inconsistent presently between tests but there is still a big difference between machines. So, perhaps these speedtests do differ and: - the slower machine takes longer to process packets and I was using a webpage that had alot of dynamic info which was reflected in actual download timings and in the original speedtests lower speed counts. I THEN tried easier, simple html webpages and the desktop was consistently 2 x faster downloading. So, I guess it really is the speed of the machine - coupled perhaps with the webpages themselves and various other variables like website server usage and ISP usage? I could try uploading a big packet if I still had somewhere to upload it to - I am no longer managing my club's website..... Anyway, it looks like there is no way to speed up my laptop - which was my goal this time round. Thanks again, Chris, for explaining how things work. Cheers, Tannis ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
