All downloads significantly slower than speedtest (not a bits vs bytes issue)

[Speenuh]

Howdy folks!

 

Long time lurker, first time poster as I'm at my wit's end. I've got a weird one for you guys. I pay for 400/20 (Mbps) from my ISP (Spectrum), and a speedtest shows I get about 485/25 (Mbps, both from the Microsoft store Speedtest app and then website using Chrome). Problem is, whenever I go to download anything from any source (Steam, Battle.net, Chrome, Microsoft store, etc.) my downloads seem to hit a hard cap at ~160 Mbps/~20 MB/s. If I go to my other PC's (this is on my gaming PC, I have a dual PC stream setup and also an Alienware 15 laptop as a media PC) I can download things without a problem, reaching speeds in excess of 400 Mbps/50 MB/s. 

 

Gaming PC (the problem system) has an i7 5820k that never seems to break 30% utilization while downloading, stream PC has a Ryzen 7 2700x, and Alienware 15 has an i7 7820HK that hits anywhere from 60-95% utilization while downloading, so it can't be a problem of the CPU not keeping up with the downloads. Gaming PC is also downloading to an Intel 660p, stream PC to a Samsung 970 EVO, and the Alienware laptop to a Seagate 5400 RPM HDD, so the storage can't be the bottleneck either.

 

I'm genuinely baffled as to what is going on, and would love some input from you fine folks. I'm 23 and have been building and messing with PC's since I was a child, and I like to consider myself fairly well versed in this stuff. If you guys have any idea what it could be or if I'm overlooking something, I would super appreciate the help!

 

Thanks guys!
 

-Anthony

[Eigenvektor]

10 minutes ago, Speenuh said:

If you guys have any idea what it could be or if I'm overlooking something, I would super appreciate the help!

Might be a bad network cable. What happens if you swap cables between the PCs?

[The_russian]

You can try to boot to a bootable Linux usb, if it works fine in Linux, then it is a software problem. 

[Lipe123]

Have you updated your network card drivers to something later? 

What motherboard do you have?

Using the onboard NIC or PCI-E card?

[Vishera]

It's common for ISPs that throttle their users (to save bandwidth) to whitelist speed testing sites to mask that shady practice.

[Speenuh]

1 hour ago, Eigenvektor said:

Might be a bad network cable. What happens if you swap cables between the PCs?

Have tried this. Same results.

1 hour ago, Lipe123 said:

Have you updated your network card drivers to something later? 

What motherboard do you have?

Using the onboard NIC or PCI-E card?

Haven't updated any drivers as of late as far as I'm aware. I have tried on both the built in motherboard ethernet port and on a USB 3.0 ethernet port. Both same results (speedtest shows great speeds but downloads limit to ~160 mbps). Motherboard is an MSI X99A SLI PLUS ATX LGA2011-3

 

1 hour ago, The_russian said:

You can try to boot to a bootable Linux usb, if it works fine in Linux, then it is a software problem. 

Haven't tried this, but I'm thinking it will would be fine in Linux. Definitely seems like it may be a Windows issue. I'll probably end up reinstalling Windows to try and fix it; it's about time to do so, anyways.

 

-Anthony

[Speenuh]

1 hour ago, Vishera said:

It's common for ISPs that throttle their users (to save bandwidth) to whitelist speed testing sites to mask that shady practice.

I was thinking this could have been it, but I can almost guarantee this isn't the issue. Downloads work fine on all other devices on the network. It's solely my gaming PC that has the issue.

 

-Anthony

[Vishera]

35 minutes ago, Speenuh said:

I was thinking this could have been it, but I can almost guarantee this isn't the issue. Downloads work fine on all other devices on the network. It's solely my gaming PC that has the issue.

 

-Anthony

Probably the network card

[Lipe123]

9 hours ago, Speenuh said:

Haven't updated any drivers as of late as far as I'm aware. I have tried on both the built in motherboard ethernet port and on a USB 3.0 ethernet port. Both same results (speedtest shows great speeds but downloads limit to ~160 mbps). Motherboard is an MSI X99A SLI PLUS ATX LGA2011-3

It's weird that you see the same results on the USB3 as well as onboard, that mostly eliminates the drivers angle.

Still it wont hurt to try and do a driver update to see if that helps.

Are you on windows 10 or win 7? (plz don't say 8 )

If windows 10 you could try the networking reset thing (https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-reset-network-settings-in-windows-10-4684679)

 

I suspect when you do a speed test it downloads to ram and immediately deletes the download.

The limiting factor might be the storage system, even though it is an nvme SSD that shouldn't have any issues.

Have you tried some basic disk speed tests like hddtune to confirm the SSD is doing it's thing?

Confirmed that trim is running? On windows 10 its built into the "defrag" software, I haven't used intel ssd's before but I suspect there is some kind of SSD control panel software to check for FW updates and force trim?

 

There is a 1% chance its some kinda software that limits things but that seems unlikely.

 

For me personally Steam has always been maxing out my internet connection at over 300mb/s so that should be a reliable source to test from.

All other download test sites barely go over 100mb/s for test file downloads.

Since your other pc's in the house work fine its unlikely to be ISP throttling.

[barkydoggo]

Have you tried testing a non-Ookla speed test, like fast.com?

Do you have ANY software installed that could affect network traffic? Software firewall, etc. You'll see them in your adapter properties

 

Also, maybe want to rebuild your network stack.

- Open a command prompt as admin

- Type and hit Enter: netsh int ipv6 reset

- Type and hit Enter: netsh int ipv4 reset

- Type and hit Enter: netsh winsock reset

- Reboot your PC

 

Check all other utilizations when downloading, including Task Manager's reported network usage.