Buffer problem or download speed?

[G-CPTN]

I have a Medion MD98200 6379 (http://www.medion.de/md98200/uk/noflash.html) Pentium dual-core T2060 1.66GHz processor 2.0GB DDR2 laptop running Vista Home Premium connected through an inbuilt Atheros AR5007UG wifi and a Netgear DG834G router to VirginNetBroadband.

Sometimes (like now) BBC videos run spasmodically, 6 seconds at a time with 20 secs buffering between.

Sometimes rebooting rectifies the situation (for a few videos then it bogs-down again). Sometimes rebooting the router works, but not always.

Youtube videos play normally.

Speedtest gives 300ms ping, 1.5 mbps download and 300 kbps upload.

Memory usage 56%, CPU generally 20% (occasional 80% bursts).

Download helper doesn't work with BBC videos.

Any guidance?

[DUS SLF]

Well, as this is the only part of this site where I can make any kind of reasonable contribution (the nickname says it all) ...

Some very basic suggestions that can be made without sending a questionnaire several pages long:

1) Your connections seems unusually slow - did you try BBC somewhere else where you have access to a faster connection?

2) Did you try a different browser to see if it works better?

3) Did you try connecting to your router via a regular LAN cable (not very likely to improve things, but you never know)

4) Maybe there are background tasks that eat up bandwidth? Those notebooks always seem to come with loads of pointless software pre-installed.

5) Windows usually installs something called QoS packet scheduler for every new network connection. There have been cases where disabling this improved things.

None of this might help but it's the first thing to look at, I guess. So please let us know, I am sure the more knowledgable folks might come with something more helpful after that.

[Keef]

My first thought would be to try with a cable to the router, rather than via WiFi.

My laptop gets over 6 meg up in our Norfolk cottage on "wired", and about 3 meg on WiFi. The difference is the "overhead" on the wireless link.

[G-CPTN]

Answer to question 2 - I usually use Firefox and sometimes using IE instead does rectify the situation, but in that particular circumstance it didn't make any difference.

I agree that sometimes my broadband connection can seem slower than expected, but other sources such as Youtube seem to transfer adequately.

I miss being able to perform a 'break' (CP/M days) and being able to see exactly what is running at the time. Even Task Manager doesn't seem to reveal hidden applications (or maybe I'm not clever enough).

I have connected using an LAN connection, but this time I just 'forgot' (it didn't resolve the situation last time, but it didn't occur to me this time - the LAN cable is still in place and I'd only have had to plug it in . . . :ugh: ).

What would be useful would be a meter on the internet connection - at least if it was being restricted I'd know and not waste time looking elsewhere. Speedtest just now - 200 ms ping, 6.8 Mbps download, 370 kbps upload.

Same BBC video that stuttered yesterday is running fine as I type . . .

Mind you I've rebooted since then, but rebooting yesterday had no effect.

[Saab Dastard]

Even Task Manager doesn't seem to reveal hidden applications (or maybe I'm not clever enough).

Use Process Explorer (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx) instead of Task Manager!

It's part of MS SysInternals.

SD

[TechnoFreak]

The reason that Youtube is okay is that the Video quality is much lower and therefore each video frame is a lot less bits.

What happens is that when you view a BBC video, if buffers up some of the data before it starts. Because it takes 1/3 of a second, (300 Ms), for each packet of data, about 12000 bits, to get to your PC, the buffer will empty and you will get interuptions.

Could be QoS as one poster suggested. May be your ISP is poor. I get about 60Ms ping to www.bbc.co.uk (http://www.bbc.co.uk) on a 3 MBs connection.

QoS is designed to some types of network traffic to jump the queue. It is there to allow real time (Video/Voice) traffic to flow smoothly and not be interupted when stuff like Microsoft patches are being down loaded. I've never looked at QoS on a PC but you may need to configure it for the BBC.

You could try pausing the playback and going for a cup of tea. This will allow the buffer time fo fill up.

Hope this helps.

[The Flying Pram]

What would be useful would be a meter on the internet connection - at least if it was being restricted I'd know and not waste time looking elsewhere. Speedtest just now - 200 ms ping, 6.8 Mbps download, 370 kbps upload.

You could always try this (http://www.rokario.com/)