Speed Check Results Slower If Not Logged in To My Account

When you are not signed in, what location is showing in the top right corner?

When not signed in it shows San Diego in the top right corner.  The speed test then shows LA 8 as the test point.  I just did a test and it was 18 mbps down and 6 mbps up.

Then I signed in.  It still showed San Diego in the top right corner.  I then paged down to where it lists internet choices, such as My Wi-Fi, Speed Test, etc. and clicked on speed test.  It showed "San Diego" market.  Two tests were 26.98 down and 5.80 up, then 35.46 down and 5.72 up.  On the last test latency was 6.21 ms.  I forgot to look at latency on the other tests.

Thanks for looking into this.

@MasterOfMyDomain

If the computer has a 54Mbps wifi adapter in it that sounds like it's a wireless-G which will top out right around 30Mbps or so after taking connection overhead into account. Upgrading the wifi to wireless-AC will give you the best wifi experience.

Chris - yours is the second worst answer I have ever received, the worst being "not all rulers are the same"  after measuring a part to prove that it was out of spec to the blueprint and the guy who made the part could not admit he made a mistake.  That was 30 years ago so you just missed making it into the hall of shame.

Please read my original question which asks why the speed test on the Cox website gives slow speeds when I am not logged in, but when I am logged it it gives speeds that are 4 times higher and also greatly exceed the maximum for the plan I have.  Those higher speeds are what appear when i select "Review results for the past speed checks."   To be blunt, it looks like Cox is cooking the books and posting false numbers to my account. 

Also included in my original question is that this computer has a 130Mbps wireless-N adapter.

Because Cox is a Data Capping lying company, looking for abit of cash.

This evening I went directly to the Cox website, bypassing Yahoo.  It took forever, as usual. 

Before logging in I ran several speed tests.  The best download speed was 4,  The worst was 1.

I immediately signed into my account with Cox and did 2 speed tests.  One was 24 down and the other 48.

The list of recent speed tests for my account shows 24 and 48 down.  This is deception at its worst!

Thanks, Tiffany, for your response.

Before signing in the Cox site shows San Diego as my location, the same location shown after I sign in. 

Trust me, the download speeds of 4 Mbps are consistent with the speed at which web pages are displayed:  at times one page can take up to 2 minutes to completely load.  There is absolutely no way this computer is getting 48 Mbps (or over 60 Mbps once, as I mentioned in a previous post - - we only have a 50 Mbps plan).

I'm not a technical expert, but it seems illogical to me that it would take 12 times longer for data to arrive from a  Los Angeles test location than a San Diego test location when we live between the 2 locations and the electrons are traveling at the speed of light, 186000 miles per second  It is less than 100 miles to Los Angeles.

When not connected to the internet the computer works fine doing spreadsheets, word processing, playing music, etc.  I upgraded the wireless adapter from 54 Mbps to 130 Mbps with no improvement in speed.  A direct Ethernet connection makes no difference either. 

@MasterOfMyDomain

Are you using a Netgear wireless range extender by chance? If so those are not part of the Panoramic Wifi service and can cause noise interference with our equipment which would also affect performance and reliability.

Yes it is a Netgear range extender.  I didn't know I had the Panoramic Wifi service - - Cox didn't start advertising it until months after I signed up.

Without the range extender the signal in that part of the house is too weak and devices will frequently lose their connection.

Several months ago I brought the Cox modem/router back and exchanged it for the same make and model, just to rule out that it was causing my slowness problems.  After installing it, the Netgear range extender was not re-installed and was unplugged for several days.  My internet was still just as slow as before.

With that said, I will unplug it and see if it helps and if the signal in that part of the house is now adequate due to the Panoramic Wifi service.

Thanks for the tip.

I unplugged the Netgear range extender.  Signal strength dropped over 50% in the rooms that are 50 to 75 feet away.  It is a single story house.  I doubt that we have Panoramic Wifi Service, but if we do it doesn't work as advertised.

After unplugging the range extender, the computer that has been slow was much faster initially.  The speed tests were about 20 Mbps down and 5 up.  But over the next 2 hours it fluctuated down to 3 Mbps down then back to 16 then down to 6 then back to 20 on tests conducted several minutes apart.  It also did it after getting off the internet then back on and staying on for awhile.  It has a Netgear wireless adapter (Wireless-N 130 Mbps), is10 feet from the Cox modem/router, and is connected to the primary Cox network, not the extended one.   Nothing has changed in this setup since we first got Cox and upgraded the wireless adapter from Wireless-G to Wireless-N (with no improvement in performance).  Getting faster speeds would also happen infrequently and then decline after a brief period, just like today.

I had Process Explorer running during all of this and noticed that when it was slow, Interrupts were using 15% of the CPU and Firefox 85%.  The 2 numbers would fluctuate up and down but CPU usage remained at 100%.  What would cause Interrupts (whatever they are) to be this high?

To be able to keep the Netgear range extender should I get a Cox compatible Netgear Wireless Router and exchange my Cox modem/router for just a cable modem?  I would think Netgear products would be compatible with each other.  I don't want to spend more money on Cox service so upgrading is not an option because I doubt it would make any difference.