Speed stats don't reflect what i pay for

[Styleten]

My speed test is showing 21 mb/s down 2 up. My uTorrent shows about 1.8 Mbs peak speeds typically when i shut other stuff off. Where is the other 19 Mbps going and how to i get more use of what i pay for.

I want to find bottlenecks and modify them.

Is a hard drive write speed a potential bottleneck?

Is an old motherboard a potential bottleneck? I don't know how to modify it or replace it.

My computer is a dell dimension 4600 with 3 gigs ram.

I imagine one bottle neck could be say my free agent go 500 gig.

Next piece of relevant information is that I'm using usb 2.0 in my externals and internal sata on my internals.

[DreadWingKnight]

uTorrent displays in *byte/sec

Your internet provider's documentation as well as most speed test sites report in *bit/sec

It's a case of missed math.

[Styleten]

So there is a multiplier of 8. How ever bytes are bigger making the missing speed 8 times larger i think.

[DreadWingKnight]

No.

1.8mbyte/sec is approximately equal to 21mbit/sec when you factor in the overheads involved in transferring that much data.

[Styleten]

No shit... Hey man thanks cause i was going to get into purchasing a mobo, maybe going from usb to firewire or an esata and getting rid of my externals which are usb. Thanks a lot

21 divided b 8 is 2.6. I'm getting 1.8 and some times i hit 2. Minus other aps, browser etc. Makes sense