Internet access is slow

fulloflead

fulloflead

Joined
May 3, 2002
Messages
6,192
My girlfriend and I share a wireless modem using Comcast cable.

I use a PC. She uses a mac.

My internet access is REALLY bad. Her's is OK.

When I go to www.testmy.net and test my access it tells me I'm at 4% speed.
My girlfriend gets 50% speed.

What software can I run on my computer to find out what is making my computer run so slowly on the internet?

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Spam reported.

Hey, Lurk - try also pcpitstop.com; they have some things there to tweak your system for maximum speed. Its a well-regarded and safe site.
 
The speed test I run is www.speedtest.net. It will suggest a server to ping, but you can test servers all over the world. Since most of my work involves connections to NY or LA, I test them whenever I feel my connections are slow. Usually its not the connection, its processes running in the background.

I run WinBar on all my computers, and clicking on the Mem Usage > Applications will show you all processes running and Mem Usage > Processes will show how much ram they are using in real time. Whenever I work on someone else's computer, the first thing I do is install the WinBar. CPU usage, Mem Usage and the DU meter are invaluable to me. Watching the CPU usage on start up will keep you from jumping programs too soon.

Fulloflead, if you want some help installing and setting up WinBar, PM me with a phone number and I'll walk you thru it. Great program to have, and its free!
 
I use testmy.net and it showed me at 4%.
I'll try yours.

I also installed an ran Registry Patrol and that doubled my speed, but that's not saying much.

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Have you tried looking at your running processes? I am wondering if you are a part of a bot network and are not aware of it?


Bill
 
You're running wireless? What are your speeds (upload/download), and what wireless router are you using?

Agreeing with bhyde...unless you can monitor what's running in the background and how much its eating, it might not be the connection speed at all. Thus my suggestion of adding a WinBar.

Are you running SpyBot? If so, do you have the Teatimer activated? That sucks up memory and processor time.
 
What type of wireless card is in your pc? Also, go to tools and internet options. Delete temporary internet files, cookies, etc.. This casn slow access. Also, where is your pc in relation to the wireless router?
 
I forgot, plug the pc into the router/modem, usying a ethernet patch cord. How does the pc run with direct hardwired connectionz?
 
I'm not running spybot.

bhyde said:
Have you tried looking at your running processes? I am wondering if you are a part of a bot network and are not aware of it?
Click to expand...

How do I tell if I have a bot running?

I've cleared out cookies, temps. etc.


rick43t3 said:
I forgot, plug the pc into the router/modem, usying a ethernet patch cord. How does the pc run with direct hardwired connectionz?
Click to expand...

I'll try that. But since my girlfriend's computer is working fine on the same network, I'm assuming it's the computer and not the network. I will still try it plugged it. Maybe that'll tell me if it's my wireless card or something.

I'll check back in after I look into some of you guys' suggestions. Thanks!

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Well, I plugged it in and it ran better (25% according to testmy).

Then I unplugged it and it's still running 25% (vs the 4% from before)

So, plugging it into the modem and then unplugging it and switching back to the wireless seems to have fixed SOMETHING, but it still doesn't run great.

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Can you take a screenshot of the processes that you have running currently? What OS are you running? Right click task bar and go to task manager, then go to the second tab and expand the window as much as possible to catch the whole list if possible.


Bill
 
bhyde said:
Can you take a screenshot of the processes that you have running currently? What OS are you running? Right click task bar and go to task manager, then go to the second tab and expand the window as much as possible to catch the whole list if possible.


Bill
Click to expand...

You got it! Thanks for trying to help me. Here it all is:







 
Turn off your firewall for a couple of minutes and see if your speed increased. When I used to do DSL support McAfee and Norton antivirus/firewall were the most common reasons people were browsing extremely slow and sometimes unable to browse at all. Sometimes those programs had to be uninstalled completely in order to be able to browse. As a sidenot, last week I uninstalled McAfee from my sister's computer. It was bogging her XP system dowm so badly that ctrl-alt-del wouldn't even bring up a full task manger window. I also had to remove the Google browser and Nero Scout (part of the OEM version of Nero burning rom) before her system was back up to speed.
 
OK. I'll try that tomorrow. I get tired of messing with my computer. I think I'll play around on BF for a while and go to bed!:D
 
run Opera as a web browser and say good bye to slow internet.

oh and ditch the Bill gates Microcrap and go MAC or Linux
 
Bushman5 said:
run Opera as a web browser and say good bye to slow internet.

oh and ditch the Bill gates Microcrap and go MAC or Linux
Click to expand...

Eh - your mileage may vary. I just built a new box with a motherboard using the new ATI 790GX with integrated HD3300 graphics and 8 GB of ram. 64 bit Vista installed problem free in around 20 minutes and everything from browsing to watching DVDs works flawlessly.
I installed 64 bit Ubuntu 8.10 on a separate hard drive. Install took around the same amount of time. First surprise after I finished the Ubuntu install - 151 updates! Sort of a Windows deja vu.
Second surprise. Finding and installing DVD codecs from the software repository and a movie player were simple. However, the previews for upcoming movies will play on a DVD, and after the previews are over and the actual movie starts playing, I get a stream error and playback stops.
And there were no choices in the resolution settings to match my samsung widescreen tv, which was connected via RGB.
Ok, let's update the video driver. System - Administration - Hardware and lookee here! A proper ATI driver is found right from the repository! Installed and restarted. Now I can set the proper 16:9 resolution for my screen and it looks much better. Tried playing a DVD using totem (the movie player) again - the problem I had originally still exists, but in addition to that the screen flickers horrendously. The movie blinks out and back on a few times a second, and the flickering movie overlays the program menus.
Tried playing a music cd - that works. Tried playing the visualization scren in the app for a light show to go with the music. Nothing but colored static lines like you used to get on a television 20 years ago when you got poor reception.
Disabled the official tested driver from the repository and restarted. The flickering is gone when playing DVDs, but the original problem is still there. And a screen resolution of 1024x768 when playing a music cd with the visualization window open does not look so great on a 32" hdtv.
I'll play around with 64 bit Ubuntu 8.10 for a day next week to see if I can get video drivers to work properly, if not I might wipe it and try 32 bit 8.04. But comparing 64 bit Vista and Ubuntu installs on my brand new box, Vista had zero problems, Ubuntu has not been able to play a DVD and has not been able to run an appropriate video driver for ATI's HD3300 video adapter.
Think it doesn't matter if you buy it for Dell or something and it comes altogether as a package? Naw - you just might have install a new video card one day, and that can easily bring you to the same place. Google 64 bit Ubuntu and ATI HD3300 and see if you think that many users out there are having problems with ATI video drivers.
And if you can't dealing with trying to make Vista work with things (Vista's compatibility mode functions pretty well for older programs), wait until you start using command lines like "$ sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf " to edit your configuration files.
My opinion - Linux is far from ready for prime time with average end users.
 
Do a "sort" on the CPU column next time so you can see how much CPU is "idle" and what processes are using the most CPU compute power easily.

Your computer is probably being "thrashed" and is "I/O bound". Your RAM is pretty low for modern Java driven web applications too. How full is your hard drive?

Your RAM appears to be a little slow and is definitely on the low side. Doubling your RAM to 2Gb and ensuring your hard drive swap space is contiguous is apt show a significant improvement in overall user response.
 
It runs the same speed with the firewall off and with the opera browser.

Sid, let me look into some of what you suggested.

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