Some download fast and some at dial up speed ; Why ? - HELP PLEASE !

[eskimofred]

Please bear in mind that I'm a beginner, so my question may well be stupid or, at best, naive. Thanks !

I apologise if this isn't the right place to ask this.

I connected up to broadband last night (SpeedTouch 330 modem).

I'm baffled by something though.

I've downloaded several files - including a movie clip and two game demos. Each of them downloaded at around 100 kb/s (Have I written that right ?).

I then went to download a couple more files and they started downloading okay, but the weird thing is tha they download at the old dial-up speed (around 5 kb/s).

This was tried both with a download manager (my usual way), and without, but it happened the same with each.

I went back and tried the other files that had downloaded at FAST broadband speeds and they still did that (FAST), so it's not anything wrong with my PC or Broadband stuff (I believe).

Is it possible that some downloads just WON'T DOWNLOAD AT FASTER THAN DIAl-UP SPEEDS ? I've never heard of this happening.

This is one that downloads fast ; A game demo (http://peregrius.cz/images/pr_trailer.jpg)

This is one of the ones that only reaches dial-up speed on download ; A file containing text adventures (http://ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/competition2004/Comp04.zip)

Thanks, and sorry if I'm asking in the wrong place - again.

[pave_spectre]

Welcome to the PC Guide forums. :)

It's quite possible that the server that only gives you download speeds equivalent to dial-up is unable to handle speeds any higher or that there are sufficient users accessing the server that no single user can get fast speeds.

[eskimofred]

Hi ! Thankyou for the welcome. :)

The first scenario sounds more credible to me as the slow-download websites are pretty obscure (some would say boring), ones. They are very unlikely to be busy.

The slow speeds are identical to those I got when using dial-up ; i.e., 20x slower than my broadband. Does it make sense that a website's server only handles dial-up speeds and not that it just happens, by coincidence, to match dial-up speed (on several different downloads) ?

Thanks again. ;)

[FastLearner]

hi eskimofred.

I think what Pave said is most likely the reason that you're experienceing slow downloads from one server, and fast ones from others. This is normal, since servers all have their own specs and some are going to be faster than others. Also, it was right on the money when he said that when servers are busy, they will not be able to dedicate enough bandwidth to your connection to give you the speeds you desire. But if they all start to download at turtle-like speed, then you may want to consider that it's something on your end slowing down the downloads.

In my case, my AV program (Avast) like to start scanning the downloaded files for viruses while the download is occurring. This obviously slows down the download capabilities on my end because my computer's processing power is being used for something other than downloading the file. What helps for me (and maybe for you, too) is if I disable my Avast AV during the download. Of course, I remember to scan the file for viruses before I open it or run anything from it, though.

[jlreich]

Yes, that makes sense. I am not an expert on servers, but besides the the reasons Pave mentioned, I do believe servers have the ability to limit how much bandwidth(speed) a user can download a particular file if they want. They can even set the limit low on one file, and high or no limit on another. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

Another possibility is the server has no limits and is capable of high speeds, but there is heavy congestion on a particular node that the server resides on at that particular time. Or their ISP is having problems. But if you are getting the exact same speed every time, that is probably not the problem.

Just some thoughts. :)