Hardware Help with Download Speed.

[RunningHamster]

This definitely isn't in the right section.

Hi! I wanted to ask about my PC's download speed. I've got an Xbox One that downloads at 7mbit/s and that's around the speed I pay for ( horrible speed I know ). The thing is that when I download things on my computer, it max only downloads at 700kbit/s which is SLOWWWWWW.

Why is this like this? xD

 

[Tizm]

it might be your network card and usually how old it is, it has lower specs, something like that

 

[RunningHamster]

it might be your network card and usually how old it is, it has lower specs, something like that

How do I check what network card the computer has?

 

[Pedeadstrian]

That's a rather big difference... 7 Mbps is already slow enough as it is, but .7 Mbps? *shudder* Where are you getting these numbers from? Have you tested it with something like http://www.speedtest.net/

 

[RunningHamster]

That's a rather big difference... 7 Mbps is already slow enough as it is, but .7 Mbps? *shudder* Where are you getting these numbers from? Have you tested it with something like http://www.speedtest.net/

Yes I have. On Speedtest.net I get 5-6 mbit/s and when I download something on the PC, it downloads at 500-800kbit/s.
EDIT:
I've checked my network card, it's pretty good, 300mbit/s speed capability, so wut?

 

[Pedeadstrian]

Yes I have. On Speedtest.net I get 5-6 mbit/s and when I download something on the PC, it downloads at 500-800kbit/s.
EDIT:
I've checked my network card, it's pretty good, 300mbit/s speed capability, so wut?

When doing the Speedtest.net test, you ARE downloading something, so it's clearly not a problem with your whole computer. Where (with what programs) are you only getting 500-800 kbps? Also... just to make sure... you're not downloading at 500-800 kiloBYTEs per second and confusing it with kilobits per second, right? The numbers match up if you are.

 

[RunningHamster]

When doing the Speedtest.net test, you ARE downloading something, so it's clearly not a problem with your whole computer. Where (with what programs) are you only getting 500-800 kbps? Also... just to make sure... you're not downloading at 500-800 kiloBYTEs per second and confusing it with kilobits per second, right? The numbers match up if you are.

Honestly, I think it's kilobits but I'm not 100% sure. It says KB/s sooooo...........
I used Google Chrome, it gives me even SLOWER speeds, so I used Free Download Manager and Mozilla Firefox to download.

 

[Pedeadstrian]

Honestly, I think it's kilobits but I'm not 100% sure. It says KB/s sooooo...........
I used Google Chrome, it gives me even SLOWER speeds, so I used Free Download Manager and Mozilla Firefox to download.

Yeah... KB/s means KiloBYTES per second. Kb/s means KiloBITS. 1 byte is equal to 8 bits, so divide 7 MegaBITS per second by your download speed and your 500-800 KiloBYTES per second matches up.

 

[RunningHamster]

So at my school, I did a speed test and it got 42 Mbit/s and when I downloaded something, it downloaded at 1 mbit/s to 4 mbit/s, does that match up too?

 

[Pedeadstrian]

So at my school, I did a speed test and it got 42 Mbit/s and when I downloaded something, it downloaded at 1 mbit/s to 4 mbit/s, does that match up too?

The M doesn't become capitalized when going from bits to bytes, the B does. But no, assuming you mean 42 Megabits/s and 1-4 Megabytes/s you are downloading a bit more slowly than your max (42/8=5.25). It could be the school's network limiting sustained transfers at high speeds, or it could be your program's limits, or it could be the website's limits. For example, Google Fiber allows for 1,000 Megabits per second, but that doesn't mean you're going to be able to download everything at that speed.

 

[RunningHamster]

The M doesn't become capitalized when going from bits to bytes, the B does. But no, assuming you mean 42 Megabits/s and 1-4 Megabytes/s you are downloading a bit more slowly than your max (42/8=5.25). It could be the school's network limiting sustained transfers at high speeds, or it could be your program's limits, or it could be the website's limits. For example, Google Fiber allows for 1,000 Megabits per second, but that doesn't mean you're going to be able to download everything at that speed.

Ah ok thanks

 

[XtremeHacker]

That's a rather big difference... 7 Mbps is already slow enough as it is, but .7 Mbps? *shudder* Where are you getting these numbers from? Have you tested it with something like http://www.speedtest.net/

Well then you'd faint if I told you I get 3 Megabytes D/l speed max, but generally 1-2.
P.S. I'm not joking.

 

[Originality]

Well then you'd faint if I told you I get 3 Megabytes D/l speed max, but generally 1-2.
P.S. I'm not joking.

Cute. But this helps the OP... How exactly?

 

[Joom]

Many things come into play that determine download speed. How you're connecting to your router (wireless b/g/n connections are guaranteed to be slower than a/n connections or direct LAN connections), where the file you're downloading is located in the world (a file in your country will download faster than one across seas, hence the speed test showing a better approximation), how much traffic is already on your network, and Microsoft's infamous TCP/IP bottleneck if you're running Windows.

 

[XtremeHacker]

One thing I can think of, do you have a VPN setup on your computer? those can really slow down your speed.

 

[Joom]

One thing I can think of, do you have a VPN setup on your computer? those can really slow down your speed.

Depends. If it's an onshore host, shouldn't affect it too much provided it's not free. Free ones will always throttle your speed.

 

[DarkFlare69]

Mb : Megabit
MB: Megabyte
Kb: Kilobit
KB: Kilobyte

Do some conversions. Speedtest measures in Mb, while chrome://downloads measures them in MB/KB. File sizes are also measured in MB/KB.