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Speed Test Tutorial

A step-by-step and Troubleshooting Tutorial to the official Blueyonder Speed Test - by Dan Elwell

In case you haven't already downloaded the Blueyonder Speed Tester, you must first get it from my Web Site at http://www.vantage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/. Follow the 'Download Now' link and further instructions will be given. Please note that this is only for Windows 95/98/2000/ME/XP - there is no MAC OS or Linux version available (sorry).

Contents:

Installing the Speed Tester

Through the aids of modern technology, the Blueyonder Speed Tester has its very own installer, which provides a familiar wizard interface which will guide you through the process of installing the Speed Test. In case you get stuck with the Installer, click this link to view help:

Installation Program Help

Using the Speed Tester

When launching the Speed Tester, you will be presented with this window asking what ISP you are currently using:

view sample screen shot

Obviously, if you are currently on blueyonder you will have to select Telewest blueyonder.
Note: Please ensure that you actually click an item before you click the 'OK' button. If you do not select an item in the list, the Speed Test will tell you that the ISP you have selected is invalid and will then exit.

Upon selecting an ISP and clicking OK, you will be presented with the Speed Test Welcome screen (shown below). It is important to note that you must not use any Internet applications whilst your test is running. If you do, the test results will be affected and the overall accuracy of the test will degrade.

view sample screen shot

If you are a beginner, and do not know a lot about Networking or Webcaches, then you can just click the 'Begin Test' button to start the test, otherwise, you can click the 'Settings' button to adjust custom options. This is detailed more further on in this document.

Once you begin the test, you will be presented with the screen shown below-left, showing you how each test is progressing. If you want to know how much progress the test has made, look at the 'Total progress' meter.

view sample screen shot   view sample screen shot

If the Speed Test appears to be doing nothing, then it may not necessarily have crashed. If the drum animation in the background continues, then the Speed Test is currently performing a test and is busy, but it has certainly not crashed. This is particularly true for the 'Performing Traceroutes' window also shown above.

Once the test has completed, you will be presented with a window asking you to input information to assist other people to help diagnose any test result problems (i.e. if you wish to contact Blueyonder Technical Support about the results). This window is shown below:

view sample screen shot

Provided that you are not behind a Network Router or Proxy Server (you will know if you are), your IP address will be displayed in the relevant field. If you are behind a Router or Proxy, you must manually enter your Internet address (not your network address) into this field. You may also enter your Blueyonder username into the 'Username' box. These are completely optional and are not required to produce your test report.

Once you click 'Continue' to that box, you will be presented with your Test Report in a formatted document style (as shown below). This test report can be used for sending to Blueyonder Technical Support for diagnostics and proof of a faulty connection (if the connection is found to be faulty).

view sample screen shot

  1. From this window you can do two things:
    Copy the contents of the report to place in an e-mail, newsgroup post or similar by clicking the 'Copy' button, then using the paste function in the program you are composing the message in.

  2. Examine the report yourself by looking at the various verdicts given next to each result. You may like to scroll down to section three for the all-important Download speeds. More information on understanding your results are given further in this document.

That's it. You've just used the Speed Tester. Simple wasn't it? You can read on for more information about understanding your results or using advanced Speed Test settings.

Using Alternate Caches and custom Ping servers

In order to keep this document at a respectable length, the advanced Speed Test settings can be found by clicking this link which will take you to another document:

Advanced Settings - note that only advanced users need click this link.

Understanding your Speed Test Results

Advanced users need not read this section, as you are likely to already know what you are looking for in the report. Just a quick pointer though; section 1 is General pings, section 2 is Custom pings, section 3 is Download speeds, Section 4 is packetloss and section 5 is Network information (IPConfig).

Network novices may like to read the following, even though a certain level of advice is given on the page.

Section 1: General Ping Results

Ping Results are the time it takes for a server to respond to a request to send a small piece of data. It is measured in MS (milliseconds) and is generally a good measure of how the routing of your ISP is shaping up. The Speed Test measures a number of sites; four in the UK (including blueyonder itself), one in France and two in the USA (one East coast and one West coast). The results you should be getting are:

  • Blueyonder server: Less than 40ms
  • UK Servers 1 - 3: Less than 40ms
  • USA East Coast: Less than 150ms (it takes about 100ms for data to cross the Atlantic).
  • USA West Coast: Less than 180ms (it has to cross the Atlantic and America).
  • European Server: Less than 60ms.

If you aren't achieving times equal to or less than these, you should contact Blueyonder Technical support as you are experiencing problems. The problems may, however, resolve themselves after a few hours automatically, as this is the way that the Internet works.

Section 2: Custom Ping Results

Depending on whether you set your own custom ping servers, these will not be given judgment as the Speed Test is unable to find the exact location of them, therefore it is difficult to know what time you should be achieving. As a rule, if you leave the custom servers unchanged, you should be getting pings to all servers of less than 50ms.

Section 3: Download Speeds

Ahh, the important bit. The download speeds are the speeds that your modem is currently working at. They are the speeds which Blueyonder happily advertise on their banners and magazine adverts. Exactly what should you be getting though? Ideally, you should be getting 64KB/s (or 512Kb/s) as this is the advertised speed (it is often higher than this). Sometimes you may achieve a slightly slower speed than this (i.e. 61k/s) but this is nothing to worry about, just a temporary slow-down of the servers. These are what the three tests mean:

  • Download from blueyonder Server:
    This is a direct download from blueyonder, and should be as near to 512k/s as possible.
  • Download through blueyonder cache:
    This is a normal Internet download, and should also be near to 512k/s.
  • Download through alternate cache:
    This is a test to see if changing your proxy server will help your connection. If this result is faster than the 'download through blueyonder cache' then you should consider setting your Proxy server to this cache (details are given on the byUsers site).

Please note, if your download speeds are quite poor, please don't rush off to telephone Technical Support. You may like to try downloading one of the patches (for your version of Windows) from the Speedguide.net web site, by clicking here.

Section 4: Packet Loss

This section reveals how much information is being lost on its way to the blueyonder servers. This is an important figure as it can drastically slow your connection down. However, it is entirely dependent on the blueyonder homepage and should that server be experiencing problems, your packet loss test will reflect this. Generally, packet loss up to about 6% is acceptable, anything other than that is poor.

Section 5: Network Configuration

This is only for diagnostic use and does not need analysing by yourself.

To summarise:

  • Downloads should be about 64k/s (512kbits/s)

  • UK Pings should be less than 40ms

  • ... and Packet loss should generally be less than 6%.

Troubleshooting

Common problems (click a link):

Problems with OCX files

To keep the Speed Test file as small as possible, I have chosen not to include the Windows System files that drive the application. This is because the files that run the Speed Test are normally already on peoples computers, so there is no point in downloading them again. This sometimes causes problems however, because people sometimes do not have these files on their computers. To rectify this problem, you can download and run this self-installing package containing these essential files:

Download the System Files Package

My Speed Test Results are poor

This is where I must leave you I'm afraid, I can't do anything but recommend that you visit the following sites. First, try to speed up your connection by downloading the appropriate patch from http://www.speedguide.net/. In 90% of the cases, this fixes the problem. If it doesn't, you will have no choice but to contact blueyonder to get Technical support via http://help.blueyonder.co.uk/ (you can also telephone on 0800 694 9694 [cable modem users only]).

Incorrect ISP Name

This simply means that you didn't actually select an ISP from the list when you were asked. Run the Speed Test again and ensure you click "Telewest blueyonder" from the list.

When I click the 'Copy' button the text is not actually copied from the box

This happens occasionally and no real fix is available as I've been unable to reproduce the error myself. If you want to copy the report however, you can just highlight the text in the document window and press CTRL+C to copy it, after which you can paste into wherever you wish.

Contacting me for further help

If the above solutions don't help you, you can e-mail me to request help. Please note that if you ask something that is listed in the text above then I will not reply to your e-mail. If I'm online, you can also use this address for MSN Messenger conversations:

dannyelwell2001@msn.com - please do not e-mail me about problems with your blueyonder service. I do not work for blueyonder and so I will be unable to answer you.

Last Amended : 2002-08-18 by elfin
Original Author : Dan Elwell

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Copyright : blueyonder Users' Group 2003