Testing the health of a broadband connection

August 1, 2007 7:36 PM

Is there a software program of some kind that will automatically monitor and analyze the health (i.e. transfer rate and up/down status) of a broadband Internet connection? Ideally like to see statistics graphed over the course of a week or so, tested every 1 to 15 minutes, so I can see what kind of quality I'm getting. I'm not sure if any software like this exists.
posted by hodyoaten to computers & internet (6 comments total)

DSL Reports has a Tools section which tests your speed, and allows you to save a history. It's web-based, not an application on your computer.
posted by The Deej at 7:41 PM on August 1, 2007

If, like many people, you're using a Linksys WRT54G wireless router, you can void its warranty and install the Tomato firmware, which is phenomenal. It's been much more stable for me than the stock setup or any other third-party firmware, plus you get the performance monitoring you're after, plus some badass QOS control.

I've also used a Windows app called IPCheck for monitoring, but the free version tracks ping time only and is really designed more for keeping track of the availability of a number of hosts.
posted by contraption at 7:47 PM on August 1, 2007

If you use a mac, istumbler?
posted by misha at 9:02 PM on August 1, 2007

Seconding DSL Reports. I've used 'em for years, and when (rarely) dealing with sketchy connectivity, sending the charts to my ISP (and telling them where the charts are coming from) got the attention of the techs in a way that "my connection keeps dropping!" never does.
posted by davejay at 11:59 PM on August 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

http://www.l8nc.com/

Pings your IP either every second or every 60 seconds and produces a graph. Does not measure throughput, only latency. There is no historical data kept - the only graphs viewable are for the current and previous day.

Please don't _everyone_ use it :) - I don't want them to get overwhelmed, as I check my graph every day and it works well.
posted by smaugy at 3:23 PM on August 2, 2007

if you have just 1 pc on the connection, use some software like bandwith monitor by softperfect. just keep this running in the background on the pc and it'll give you nice graphs of your network traffic.

from a quick google search, there are tons of apps that will do this for you. netlimiter i think is ment to be quite good (and has a free version)

if you have more than 1 pc on the network then you need to monitor the bandwith from your router (as contraption mentions above).
so either get a nice router (like the linksys?) or grab an old, lo powered pc and install somehting like ipcop or m0n0wall on it (bit more complicated perhaps but much more flexible)
posted by donbing at 3:57 AM on August 6, 2007