Valid Network Speed Test?

[Velvis]

I am trying to pin down a network issue with one particular Mac computer. Is there a legitimate speed test that is accurate? I have been using Verizons, Ookla, speedtest.org and they all vary widely in the results.

 

[Mercenary Roadie]

Give DSLReports speed test a try.

www.dslreports.com/speedtest

 

[Markverhyden]

That's kind of a vague request as it depends what you're trying to figure out. All of those speedtest websites will vary, sometimes by a lot. Doing speed tests with the ISP tools are also misleading since they are "on the inside".

If I use those website based ones I'll use 3, usually speedtest.net, megapath, and the ISP. I'd done some troubleshooting work with providers that used iperf. It's much more sophisticated as you can specify the payload, which most of the other's don't allow. So you can specify a 5gb file for an example. But the downside is it's kind of hard to find a public iperf server that works 100%. Another thing I'll use is a continuous ping to both a FQDN and the corresponding IP of that FQDN. Sometimes the problems are related to DNS.

The key point is most of those website ones don't allow a continuous test, usually a payload in the 10's of MB size.

 

[Your PCMD]

they all vary widely in the results

Even if you use the SAME one over and over, you will ALWAYS get a different set of analytics.

If you need anything besides basic upload and download, then use https://testmy.net/

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

If you're looking for local LAN speedtest I like this HTML5 option. I run it in a VM on my laptop. https://freedif.org/how-to-install-selfhosted-speedtest

 

[DRPCNZ]

Even if you use the SAME one over and over, you will ALWAYS get a different set of analytics.

If you need anything besides basic upload and download, then use https://testmy.net/

Gets my vote as well

 

[timeshifter]

You didn't specify whether you wanted to test Internet or local LAN. Always make sure there's no bottleneck locally. Here's a good tool for that.

https://totusoft.com/lanspeed

 

[NviGate Systems]

Knew a tech who used to diagnose whether a router issue was fixed by running ping tests and a few other scripted things like dns lookup which I think will give you a time in seconds for the lookup, and also transferring file to another local machine to rule out a local issue.

Also, double check with the current plan the customer is on with ISP, I've had plenty of cases where they had the slowest speed and it ended up being a mistake, they upgraded package and for whatever reason the ISP rolled back to the old speed.