Download speeds are good. Upload speeds are terrible. Win7

Question

I’m running Windows 7 with a wired connection to my Verizon FIOS router. My download speeds are usually around 80 Mbps, but my upload speeds are lucky to break 1.0 Mbps. This is a new problem, although I haven’t changed anything about my set up. We did, however, suffer a bad storm and power outage before all of this happened.

My wireless network—plugged into the same router—is fine. My laptop connected via ethernet to the router is fine. (Upload speed is usually around 30.0 Mbps.) So it’s only on my desktop that this problem is occurring.

I’ve tried everything I can think of or find to fix it, with no success.

Any thoughts?

Solution 1

Since you don't have the problem on your wireless router connected to the same router, and you changed the ethernet cable, I think you're right in assuming that the problem is inside your machine. By chance did you try, if possible, a different ethernet port on your router (assuming it has more than 1).

The fact that you tried a wireless adapter on the desktop makes me doubt it is a problem with the ethernet card, however I still want you to try and removing the ethernet card drivers and let Windows automatically find and install new ones.

After that, could you by chance try booting into another OS like Ubuntu from a Live CD and see if you still have the same upload issue from there? That way we can get closer to knowing if it is a software or a hardware problem.

Solution 2

I had the same problem and this helped me. Reposting the answer:

The answer turned out to be the Large Send Offload (IPv4) setting on my NIC. It was enabled by default. When I disabled it my work upload speed jumped to 12+ Mbps. It appears that if the infrastructure (e.g. routers, switches) don't support this option the transmits become "bursty" and slow down. My home router (an Apple Airport Extreme) apparently does support this option.

To disable, go to Start->Control Panel->Device Manager->Network adapters->[your LAN adapter name], right-click then select Properties->Click Configure button. On the Advanced tab, find property Large Send Offload (IPv4) and change its value to Disabled then click OK.

Comments

[imtheman]

Can you explain some of the things you did to try to fix it? That way we don't just repeat every thing you've already tried.

[David Montgomery]

Replaced the ethernet cable. Ran the FIOS TCP/IP optimizer. Powercycled everything. Cleared the internet cache and temp Windows files. Tried different browsers. I even tried hooking a wireless adapter into the desktop, with the same results.

[imtheman]

Have you tried different ethernet ports on your router? (I don't think that's the problem, but I guess it doesn't hurt to try) What NIC are you using? If onboard NIC have you tried adding a PCIe NIC?

[Gurken Papst]

If you suspect damaged hardware you should see if the problem also occurs when you use another OS, e.g. a Linux live system like Knoppix.

[David Montgomery]

I've tired different ethernet ports on the router. (And the router's brand new -- Verizon came out and changed it.)

[Daniel R Hicks]

Upload to where? If you're uploading to somewhere outside of your LAN, then your internet provider may be limiting upload speed. This is commonly done to force you to buy a commercial account if you set up a server.

[David Montgomery]

These are my speed test results (speedtest.net and others), but the glacial speed is also easily noticeable in regular web browsing. Verizon definitely isn't throttling me down.

[MetaGuru]

Wait so, it worked fine the first time you ran speed test but not the second time? Keep in mind that speed test results will also depend on the server chosen.

[David Montgomery]

I booted with Ubuntu from a USB and everything worked fine. Good, repeatable speed tests. No slow down. But when I rebooted Windows, I had all kinds of trouble getting it loaded. It kept hanging on Startup, crashing, etc. When I finally got it booted up, I ran a speedtest. Great results. Ran the test again, same server, and the slow upload was back. So it seems Windows is screwed up somehow. But with really odd results.

[MetaGuru]

@DavidMontgomery Curious indeed... are you able to see anything happening in the Windows Event Viewer around the time of the power outage, or something new now showing up after the power outage? Worst case scenario, you might have to make some backups of your data and do a fresh install of Windows...

[Ramhound]

This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post - you can always comment on your own posts, and once you have sufficient reputation you will be able to comment on any post.

[Andy]

Verizon FIOS is symmetrical.