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Balenothree's avatar
Balenothree
Joining in
2 years ago
Solved

Virgin Throttling Nord VPN Firestick

Hi, 

My speeds appear to have been restricted to 15-20 Meg using Nord VPN with my 4k firestick (located next to the router) to connect to US servers. 

I have been through steps with Nord and appears an issue with firestick and Virgin. My phone and other devices are post 100meg speeds (from a 350meg connection).

 

The child safe and virus settings are off, any help appreciated. Thanks in advance. 

  • 89537kay3's avatar
    89537kay3
    2 years ago

    Have you tried using a Public DNS? Let me know if not and i'll try to guide you through this.

    However, IF VM are throttling it (which i doubt they are) there is nothing we can do here.

  • Client62's avatar
    Client62
    Alessandro Volta
    2 years ago

    Enabling any VPN means the performance is now limited by how fast the device can run the VPN Client app and also limited by how fast the VPN exit point permits traffic to flow & this may drop at busy times.

    VM does not care if we use VPN or HTTPS traffic, both types of encrypted packets are unrestricted.

    • Balenothree's avatar
      Balenothree
      Joining in
      2 years ago

      I think they do around certain sports streams though... 

  • Adduxi's avatar
    Adduxi
    Very Insightful Person
    2 years ago

    I would imagine the Firestick is struggling to run the VPN client ?

  • vmrunreliable's avatar
    vmrunreliable
    Superfast
    2 years ago

    I have a similar issue, my firestick tops out around 350Mbs when using VPN and I pay for a 512Mbs connection, I'll be interested to know if you get your issue resolved. 

    • 89537kay3's avatar
      89537kay3
      Dialled in
      2 years ago

      I'd say that's a totally okay speed to be honest, while running a VPN.

       

  • legacy1's avatar
    legacy1
    Alessandro Volta
    2 years ago

    Get s better wifi router with 1Gb ports and use hub in modem mode

  • 89537kay3's avatar
    89537kay3
    Dialled in
    2 years ago

    Have you tried using a Public DNS? Let me know if not and i'll try to guide you through this.

    However, IF VM are throttling it (which i doubt they are) there is nothing we can do here.

  • Balenothree's avatar
    Balenothree
    Joining in
    2 years ago

    Thanks for all the responses. I don't think 10% of your connection speed is acceptable though. It could be a firestick limitation with the VPN as mentioned above but strange others away from Virgin don't have this issue. Nord seem to think it was issues with IPv6 (which they don't support) . Indeed, Proton free VPN has got me the fastest at 35 Meg intermittently. 

     

    Any guidance on a Public DNS would be helpful. 

    • 89537kay3's avatar
      89537kay3
      Dialled in
      2 years ago

      Hey!

      So you can try using a public DNS such as google (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4) or Cloudflare (1.1.1.1, 1.0.0.1).
      This page offers a really good guide on how to do it on a fire stick: https://proprivacy.com/guides/change-dns-firestick

      I'm not 100% sure how much the DNS will improve. Unfortunately, when connected to VPN's, speeds can be a little tricky. ProtonVPN are supposed to be on of the fastest, so if you're still struggling with that i'm not sure what else to suggest. However, IPV6 doesn't come into play here - Virgin Media do not use IPV6.

      I've never seen VM purposefully throttling any type of connection / traffic.