Also:
Servers can be setup to force rate and you probably wouldnt notice anything. So it would cap your rate @ 25000 on connection and do a quick vid_restart like loading map 2 times. If you looked in your etpro folder you may see cvar backups if its enabled in config. They are small text files saying that the rate should be between x and y and any other cvars outside the server settings :)
just for info :P