I'm having a major issue with my son's internet speed. He mentioned it was really slow, and when I ran a speed test, it barely hit 6 Mbps, sometimes dropping to around 400 Kbps. We have a 1 Gbps connection, and this is the slowest we've ever seen on his PC. I checked the other computers in the house, and they're all getting speeds between 500 - 700 Mbps on WiFi.
One strange thing I noticed in the Task Manager is that it shows his Ethernet download speed as 300 Mbps, but the online speed test maxes out at only 4 Mbps. I'm really confused about why there's such a huge difference in these readings. Any ideas?
5 Answers
I totally get your frustration! I'm having the same issue where I should be getting around 1000 Mbps, but I’m only seeing about 8 Mbps on my hardwired PC. I’ve reset my modem and router, did all sorts of command prompt stuff—but nothing works. My phone gets around 500-600 Mbps though!
First things first, try disconnecting any VPNs or third-party antivirus software you might have running. They can sometimes slow down internet speeds. After that, run another speed test and see if things improve!
You might want to check if his PC is downloading a lot of data that could be hogging the bandwidth. Look in the browser downloads tool and see if there are any active downloads or if a torrent client is running. Closing those should help free up some speed!
Just a thought—have you checked or replaced the Ethernet cable? I had a similar problem where a bad cable ended up cutting my speed in half.
It looks like the other PCs are getting better speeds, but you've mentioned that his PC is showing a wired Ethernet connection. Check how he’s connected—is he plugged directly into the router, or is there an extender involved? If he’s using both Ethernet and WiFi at the same time, try disabling one of them to see if there's any improvement. If nothing changes, switch it back and try the other connection instead!
I switched to a wired connection too, but I'm still getting the same slow results.
How far is your PC from the router? I found that having just two walls between mine and the router really cut my speed.