How Do I Monitor Internet Connection Speed?

self | 3/24/02 | lafroste

[lafroste]

My wife and I have come to suspect that our cable modem (high bandwidth) internet connection is not nearly as fast as our ISP (Road Runner) has claimed. We are looking for software that can monitor and report data transfer speed. My wife said she had heard of such a software but can't remember its name or where to get it. Anyone know about this? Thanks,

lafroste

[Sub-Driver]

try this............http://gibroadband.com/1024x768/index.htm

[Interious]

I use DU meter. http://www.dumeter.com

Excellent little program for monitoring download and upload speeds.

[Zap Brannigan]

To test the DSL connection to you ISP, see http://www.dslreports.com/ To monitor your real-time data transfer speed while surfing there is a nice little program (NetStat Live) available from AnalogX. See http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/nsl.htm

[Naplm]

do a search for COOLMON. monitors everything, can be set to the desktop in transparancy and its free.

[jokar]

DSL Reports-

[The Mayor]

~

[RedWhiteBlue]

There is some really good advise in THIS THREAD that will help you tweak your modem's performance. It worked wonders for my cable modem. I don't use software to monitor the speed, but if I am curious I go HERE to run a quick check.

[wontbackdown]

My DSL transmission was as slow as my regular modem, using a Compaq computer that is now 2-3 years old. It was on clearance sale when I bought it, and the last one of its kind in the store.

I did everything I could to increase the speed but to no avail. I finally gave up and bought a new Dell Dimension 8200 computer and now my downloading and web surfing is very fast and completely satisfactory. Unfortunately, computers just become obsolete. I sure hope my new one lasts for awhile!

[www.corvettewave.com]

http://www.toast.net at toast.net they have a performance test that determines connections speed...

[LibWhacker]

I second to motion to use dslreports.com. It's as accurate as any software monitor you can install on your computer, at least in my experience, and I've tried a bunch of 'em.

If you haven't already tweaked your modem settings, I'd recommend you do that, too. I've tried a number of different third-party tweaks, and the very best of the lot IMHO was TweakIt, distributed by tweakfiles.com. It really made my old connection speed soar, triple what any other tweak did for me. For a while there, I was regularly hitting T3 speeds with my Comcast cable connection. But unfortunately, cNet bought tweakfiles.com and shut 'em down . . . grrrrrrrrrrrr! (Not that it would do me much good nowadays, even if I could get my hands on it for my newest computer -- AT&T acquired Comcast's operation in N. California and toggled everybody back to 1.5Mbps down . . . And no matter what tweak you've installed on your computer, you're not going to go any faster than that, if you're one of their customers.)

Next best tweak that I've been able to find is CableNut available at BroadBandNuts. BroadBandNuts also has informative discussion forums, where they talk about almost nothing else but tweaking your connection speed and getting the most out of your broadband connection.

Before you install any of these tweaks, make sure you back up your registry. BroadBandNuts will tell you how. Good luck!

[MamaTexan]

Hubby goes to a website called PC Pitstop to check upload and download speeds.

(Along with other stuff.....but I don't have a clue what he's talking about!)

[LibWhacker]

Wow, BroadBandNuts certainly has gone downhill since the old days! Their forums used to have thousands of articles posted on them. Now, they're down to dozens. Still, I recommend you take a look at CableNut. It's free and it's good. :-)

[MindyW]

I have roadrunner as well. I've used this site to test my speed. I suspected I was going slower than they claimed also and, after a check, was running between 100 to 200 Kbps. My cable modem was connected via a USB cable since I had no NIC card installed. I put in a NIC card yesterday, and after a new test, am running at between 500-1000.

[sigSEGV]

Great little program that I use, called NetStat Live. You can get it here

You'll want to look at the "Incoming" graph. Make sure you understand the differences between KiloBytes and Kilobits/s. 8 bits = 1 byte. With my RoadRunner service, I can get upwards of 300-350 KB/s (2.4 - 2.8 Megabits/s).

[Cultural Jihad]

Try this site:

http://promos.mcafee.com/speedometer/

[pankot]

Try NetMonitor.com

[lafroste]

Thanks to everyone for an excellent response. Is this a great site or what?

[kellynla]

I use Roadrunner as well and because I receive real time data on the Stock Market I get a continuous "ping" test to keep me informed of the connection speed and if and when I lose my connection.

[Fithal the Wise]

Try Lucent's free software MyVitalAgent at

http://www.myvitalagent.com