Starting my own post now after reading for days of others' simlar problems which to date appear mostly unresolved.
Gen5 installed Friday March 16, 2018, previously using Gen4 I believe it was, through DishNet. Hands down the Gen4 a much faster, more reliable system and the ability to get help far surpassed that of Hughes directly. Hopefully these speed issues will all be corrected before my 30 days is up to cancel. Note, I am not comparing speeds or ping rates, etc to anything other than Hughes Gen4 which is what I had for a few years.
Using a brand new HP Windows 10 computer, set up the day after the Gen5 installation. 64bit, 8gb Ram, 1 TB hard drive. Have disabled all updates and only ones that can't be turned off are downloading during wee hours of the morning. As well have uninstalled all extra programs on the computer, installed Chrome and Firefox, but only using Firefox as the Chrome was even worse in performance. Have an adblocker on browser. Installed Glasswire to monito data usage as it appears data may be going far more quickly than with Gen4 but since Hughes is resetting each morning back to zero usage it's hard to tell yet. Computer is hardwired direct to HT2000W modem with a 4 or 5 ft ethernet cord with modem placed, of course, less than that from laptop. All wifi is disconnected on the modem (via the settings in Hughesnet account pages) and has been the entire time. Wifi light on front of modem stays on however, which maybe it's supposed to, but that doesn't make a lot of sense. It occasionally flashes, however. (?) I have no wireless devices that connect or try to connect to a wifi connection, and no close neighbors.
I ran a speed test on March 19 via testmy.net but wasn't logged in. Starting March 24 I logged in and started running tests using 25mb down and 4 mb up but don't do many upload tests as that's not my main concern although those speeds are less than half what they should be.
I'm posting a URL which I believe will take you to the test results, but in case it's not correct I am also posting a screenshot of the tests. Note the incredible variance in speeds, but in general, even at what the tests show might be passabile speeds, actual usage to watch a 2 min low quality video on youtube, (or anywhere else), is nearly impossible due to buffering. Yes, video saver is on now but it makes no difference usually. Also note that the "higher" speeds in the test were not totally, but mostly, late night. Still, these are generally nowhere near the advertised speeds, but close sometimes to 60%.
URL:
Screenshots (included the beam, etc.):
I also rebooted the modem this morning, just prior the the latest speed test noted above that tested 3.52Mbps download speed. I have, as well, had pretty much clear skies and good weather, no rain, for the entire 9 days that I have had this new system.
I understand that satellite signals are complex and at best not real consistent, yet the Gen5 system, thus far, has been far worse is really every respect than the previous Gen4. Add to this the fact that the Gen5 was promoted, at least to me, by several different people, (DishNet, three reps/techs connected to the installer I had), all promotional materials from all forms of media from HughesNet themselves, etc, as being much faster than Gen4, including the fact that the throttled over data limit speeds would still be 2 to 3 times as fast as the usual non-throttled speeds of Gen4, the fact that it has streaming capabilities, and the fact that you could actually use a phone with the system (thank goodness I didn't go ahead and get that). None of these are true. And by judging from just the complaints I see on here and as well other review sites this is very common and to date pretty much unresolved.
I appreciate that there are people on this community trying to help, I sincerely do. It appears that, for whatever reason(s), this Gen5 system is either not capable of what was promised, been over subscribed to the point of not being viable, launched prematurely, or has serious issues that are either being not recognized, not admitted to, or simply not able to be corrected.
If someone here can "fix" these issues, in a reliable, long standing way, then all is well and good. It appears that may not be possible. At any rate, if I cannot get this system to perform at least on par with the older system before my 30 days is up, I will have to cancel and look elsewhere or see if it's possible to go back to Gen4.
If I have overlooked any test needed or other info, please alert me and I will oblige to the best of my ability.
Thanks anyone and everyone that can help or responds.
@GabeUwrote:
That's good that you were able to disable the WiFi, including disabling the radios themselves. I tried Firefox and it actually worked better for me than Chrome. LOL. Go figure. 😛
And no, enabling/disabling the WiFi won't mess anything up with Liz's information. The important thing, as Liz mentioned in her reply, is making sure that the modem remains plugged in for at least the next 5+ days.
Also, I read what you were talking about with that 20% thing. To be honest, I wouldn't mess with it. The reason is that 99% of the time this won't affect you. That 20% reserved is for when QOS dependent applications are running, and they should have a reserve so they can do what they are supposed to when they need to. Turning that 20% off can actually cause more harm than good for those applications. And most of the time those applications aren't running in the first place, and when they aren't you'll have 100% of your bandwidth.
If you know how to I would reverse what you changed and set it back to where it was. Again, you'll rarely ever see a difference in speed and it can cause more headaches than it's worth.
Well NOW you tell me! 
I can see if I can figure out how to reverse it. I was a little afraid to do it but so many said it had helped their speeds so thought I'd try since instructions were fairly clear. I guess if I change back and can verify it has slowed things down with no other traceable reason I can revert back again. I'm guessing Win 7 doesn't have this issue. I'm considering changing this pc to Win 7 as it's far more controllable especially for updates but I haven't decided yet. Any thoughts?
I've been having trouble with Firefox for quite a while now. I installed the newest version and it wouldn't display pages, sometimes at all and sometimes just partially so I went back to version 56 I think it is. I'm running auto speed tests now on Chrome and either my speed is picked up some now or Chrome testing better. What a headache!
Thanks for all of your help!
@GabeUwrote:
It's possible for different browsers to give different results, but that big of a difference is probably just coincidence.
My Edge browser sometimes gives really strange test results, especially if I haven't been to TMN for a while with that browser (I don't normally use Edge). Sometimes it will stick in the beginning, then slingshot across the progress bar, given me really odd results. Chrome is the browser I find to work best when testing, but that could also just be my preference for it.
I just tried a test using Firefox and then a test using Chrome immediately afterward, and the difference was only 0.3Mbps. After typing that I tried a test with Edge and it was 0.9Mbps lower than Firefox, which was the lower of the first two. Again, not much difference, and with it being two minutes after the first two it could just be that my speed truly did go down nearly 1Mbps.
Gabe, Liz
Ran auto test overnight, testing every hour. Tried something that appears to have worked, mostly anyway. I had both Chrome and FF open, and set auto test to run on each but at an offset of about 10 minutes. Ran 5 tests each. Although the results this morning have thrown in two combo tests of up and download on it's own so not sure what browser(s) that was and why it did that.
Note that overnight the two browsers were fairly close in results and fairly good speeds considering my past performances. This morning ran 4 back to back tests, 2 on each browser. The last four on this chart are those with FF being the low ones of 6.7 and 6.5 and Chrome the 16.4 and 16. 2. Now, why such a difference in results now when overnight and a few other times are much closer? Also, FF and Chrome aren't consistent in one always being the faster and one the slower. Odd to me but I'm sure there are many factors at play in these tests. (I just noticed two other random tests at 8 something a.m. this morning but at 17mb instead of 25. Hmmm.....Thinking I did those but I know I clicked to use 25MB on each browser.....?
Also, in the chart of results, the overnight testing I had marked as "Home" for Firefox and "Work" for Chrome so I could more easily see the varying results as opposed to just checking the timestamp of the test. After 6 days of tests I'm still only averaging 9.7 download. I'll continue to see how it works in real time as far as video streaming, web pages, etc. I'll be gone for several hours midday, but may run a few scattered auto tests.
First, the mysterious tests in your results that you did not run (the ones in the yellow field). Those are tests run by other people that are sharing your connection ID. HughesNet uses shared IPs rather than everyone getting their own, and those shared IPs will show as a shared connection ID. If someone else sets up an account and they're sharing your connection ID for some of their tests, they'll see the tests you ran on the same Connection ID in their results, too. It's annoying, for sure.
But, there is a way to fix it. If you scroll to the bottom of your results field you'll see a little button that says "Exclude tests taken on your connection ID that are not logged under JEANNE H". Click on that button and it will do away with those tests in your results that weren't run by you. WE don't see those non JEANNE H test results when WE look at your test results, but YOU do. And clicking on that button will make it so YOU don't see them, either. I'll post a picture of the spot on my page where the button is so you know where to look for it. It'll be outlined in a red box. It's my opinion that the default setting should be to NOT include those other tests, but for some reason the default setting is the way it is.
Now, as for why you're seeing different results with different browsers, I honestly don't know. It could be the way they cache info when the tests are run. I've never experienced that, or at least not enough of a difference that it's noticeable. Well, not recently, anyway. Many years ago I found the Opera browser to be a bit faster with dial up than Internet Explorer, but we're talking circa 2000.
@deserthavenwrote:Started having trouble watching a short video, buffereing terrible every several seconds, so took another couple of testsaround 1:24 pm Sun 4-1. Win 7: Firefox 58.2 Chrome 29.3, Win 10: Firefox 2.9 Chrome 16.4.
An idea. When you use your Windows 7 machine you can still sign in, but use "Location 7" as the identifier, or some other identifier that would let you know that those specific results were from that computer.
With that said, due to it using the same Connection ID I was able to find that 58.2Mbps result, even though you weren't signed in. It's most definitely a glitch. Why it gave you that result is odd. It should have been more around the mid 20Mbps range. I've seen glitches before with testmy tests, but this one is really odd. Anyway, here's the test graph from that 58.2Mbps test. The discrepancy is easy to see, as the highest it got was 30.84Mbps, so an average result of 58.15Mbps?. A head scratcher, for sure. I'm contemplating asking on testmy's forum why it might do something like this.
@Lizwrote:Hi deserthaven,
Thank you for the info on your latest speed tests. That is interesting about the discrepancies between the browsers. I was discussing this with Amanda, and she noted that browser addons/extensions may play a part in this. I'd try doing the same experiment you did, but in incognito browser windows with absolutely no addons.
I just checked your diagnostics and I'm not seeing anything abnormal, but I would like to check up on this again at the end of the week to see if that keeps up.
Liz,
Thanks for checking on things.
I just ran four tests, two on each laptop, each in an incognito window on both browsers. Looks much more reasonable. Usable speeds if it's accurate. Barely into 60% of advertised but usable. It almost looks like the new modem made a difference and like Gabe said speeds picked up after it had downloaded/updated everything.....or just coincidence. I guess time will tell. I'm guessing most other problems are congestion from all the users. I will start watching data used this week since the reset every day will end tomorrow I believe. Here's the screenshot of the four tests this morning.
Home is Win 10 pc using FF, Work is Win 10 using Chrome, Location 7 is Win 7 laptop using FF and location 8 is Win 7 using Chrome. All pretty close.
Thanks to all!
