Weird WAN speed issues with my workstation

I’m having some of the strangest issues with my workstations.  Here are the specs:

ASUS Rampage V Extreme
Intel Core i7 5820K @ 3.30GHz
Corsair Dominator Platinum 64 GB
Samsung EVO NVMe 500GB solid state drive
Seasonic 1000W PSU

I recently upgraded to gigabit Internet with Spectrum Business.  I initially was seeing horrible speeds, anywhere from 100 Mbps to 300 Mbps.  I finally hooked my 15″ Mid 2015 MacBook Pro up with Lightning to Ethernet adapter and plugged directly into the modem.  I can see my connection is NOT the problem.  I see anywhere from 800 Mbps to 1.3 Gbps on the MacBook, CONSISTENTLY.  This is the mind-boggling part.

Now we go back to my Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit workstation.  I was on 1803 and updated to 1809 last night.

I consistently see speeds being gimped from the gigabit I should be getting to around 100-300 Mbps which is pissing me off.  I know that something is using up my network resources and or is doing some traffic shaping.  I’ve tried a clean boot, but some programs don’t adhere to a clean boot and keep running anyway.  I wish I could do a clean install but don’t have that kind of time anymore.  I may look into installing Windows onto one of the various spare PCs I have lying around the house but, procrastination and stuff.

In the meantime, I’d like to put this out there and if anyone else has seen their speed test speeds being gimped but clearly know that it’s working properly because they hooked up another device, whether it’s a Mac or another PC with a different OS or a clean install with no other applications running, let me know.

Something is gimping the connection.  I have disabled the firewall, antivirus, and any other programs that I can think of that would use the WAN link heavily.  I sometimes can see gigabit speeds through fast.com and speedtest.net, but it’s not consistent.  I know some people might be thinking well, there are peak hours and other various explanations, but that does not explain why my MacBook Pro can consistently, and I mean at any time of the day, do speed tests out to fast.com and speedtest.net’s various servers and see close to if not gigabit speeds!

I found a blog that suggested running TCP Optimizer from https://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php.  I ran it, and so far I see consistent gigabit speeds.  I will continue testing throughout the day and will report back if it’s a permanent thing.

Edit: 12/16/2018:

Well, I can confirm that the TCP Optimizer has fixed my issues.  If you see weird slowdowns on your WAN connection as though something is throttling your speed, check out the TCP Optimizer.  I ran it, changed the settings to optimal and restarted.  It’s been about a full 24 hours and no problems to report.  I’m seeing the full 1 Gbps connection being used on all speed tests.

Weird eSIM issue with Apple iPhone XS Max and Verizon Wireless + Simple Mobile

When Apple announced that their new iPhone XS Max was going to have dual-sim capability I was ecstatic.  I finally moved my business line which is on Verizon to the eSIM.  Last night I purchased a Simple Mobile SIM card from Best Buy and setup a personal line.  I didn’t have much problems other than the activation taking a few hours.

Here is the issue I am having.  I have two phone numbers which are VOIP lines that, after X amount of rings, forward the call to my Verizon phone number.  I noticed this morning I was receiving voicemails with no missed calls.  I immediately figured it was related to the dual-sim.  I can fix this temporarily by either turning on airplane mode and then turning it off and or going into cellular settings and disabling my personal line and then turning it back on.  This will fix the problem temporarily but will eventually start blocking calls that are forwarded from this VOIP line that I own.

I am assuming it is some kind of bug and hope it is not by design.  The fact that I can fix it by disabling the line and re-enabling it leads me to believe that this is a bug and not by design.

Windows 10 Photos app printing problem: Your printer has experienced an unexpected configuration problem. 0x800706b5

I ran into this problem with a client’s computer.  A brand new Dell OptiPlex 7050 with a NVMe solid state drive.  Trying to print a simple .jpg picture would allow the default printer to come up in the settings box but trying to select a secondary printer would cause this error to come up.  I tried uninstalling the printer and reinstalling it.  The only time I had success was by utilizing the PS driver for the printer.  The printer in question is a Ricoh C3003 MFP.  After uninstalling and reinstalling it a third time it resulted in ALL printers just saying Connecting…  Restarting the print spooler service and changing the driver did not help.  I finally found something on Google that said it’s easier to just right click the .jpg and click on print as it will bring up an entirely different program to print the picture.  Windows 10 and its what I call “tablet” apps aren’t the greatest.  I find them to be extremely buggy and more often than not, I never find an actual fix for the problem.  I always have to find a workaround, which, unfortunately, is quite sad.