Broadband Upload Speeds

[chrisjp]

I'm on a FTTC broadband connection and, until my recent migration to digital voice, used a TP-Link VR2800 router. I've now replaced this with a BT Smarthub 2 so as to enable digital voice.

With the TP-Link router I was getting around 55Mbps download and 18 Mbps upload speeds (tested using the Ookla Speedtest app). With the BT SH2 I'm still getting around 50-55Mbps download and around 13Mbps upload speeds on all computers and portable devices, whether connected by ethernet cable or WiFi -  except 1 of them.

The exception is my newest desktop - a Dell Inspiron running WIN10. On this computer, which is connected to the SH2 with an ethernet cable, I'm getting 55Mbs download OK, but upload speeds have not exceeded around 4Mbps and sometimes have been as low as 0.3Mbps. This computer used to give me upload speeds of around 18Mbps linked by ethernet cable to the TP-Link router, and the drop only occurred when I changed to the SH2. I have a laptop computer also connected to the SH2 by ethernet cable, and I have swapped the cables over between the laptop and the desktop, but the desktop is still giving very low upload speeds, while the laptop is still giving around 13Mbps.

Since I'm not seeing this upload speed drop with any  of my devices except the Dell,  it seems it can't be the SH2, but the Dell gave me perfectly good upload speeds when it was connected to the TP-Link router.

This has got me very puzzled - can anyone shed any light on this?

[chrisjp]

As an addendum to this, I've just re-tried the TP-Link router and I'm still getting very low upload speeds on the Dell - so it can't be the SH2. Could it be that some sort of fault has occurred on the Dell ethernet card that just happened to coincide with my move to the SH2?

[licquorice]

Have you tried a different Ethernet cable?

[chrisjp]

Yes I have - as I noted I swapped over the ethernet cable that was connecting my laptop with the one connecting the Dell desktop. No change however - the laptop still gave good upload speeds, the desktop still stuck at around 3

[licquorice]

Try resetting your ethernet card in the Dell. Try disabling/enabling first. If that doesn't work, delete the card and let Windows find it again.

[chrisjp · Accepted solution]

I've tried disabling/enabling the ethernet card in the Dell and this has brought about an improvement to around 6Mbps upload. Since ethernet cards are so cheap I might just try putting a new one in an expansion slot so as to bypass the one incorporated in the motherboard