Cable Connection but IE Lagging

[FZWG]

Appreciate some assistance.

Trying to help someone with a cable ISP, but complaining that IE browser is awfully slow.

OS=WMe
CPU=AMD900MHz
RAM=128MB

Already ran Spybot S&D and AdAware to remove spyware, etc.

Also ran and removed undesirable entries from HijackThis!.

Repaired IE 6.0

Cleaned the caches in DOS (History, temporary internet files, cookies)

Used MSConfig to disable programs running at startup.

After all of the above, no progress, IE still lagging.

The fellow has the free version of Zone Alarm, and also Norton Antivirus running. Thinking about disabling Zone Alarm and see how that goes.

Have never used Zone Alarm (in any of its versions).

Q#1 How does one go about disabling the free version of ZA to see if this is the culprit?

Q#2 Any ideas of anything else one can try to see if the browsing experience becomes speedier?

Thank you in advance for your help.

[james8547]

Originally posted by FZWG Appreciate some assistance. Trying to help someone with a cable ISP, but complaining that IE browser is awfully slow. OS=WMe

That's your problem right there

But seriously, I doubt that ZA is the problem. I have ZA on my old Dell ME and it doesn't affect the speed.

To disable ZA, right click on it on the taskbar. Shutdown ZA > yes.

My bro installed webaccelerator on the old ME. It achieved sustained d/l speeds of 10mbps (well at least according to McAfee Speedometer). However, the cable connection to my new PC slowed down to a trinkle.

I don't recommend installing any tweaks like that. My bro messed up the dell ME big time when he tried to install another accelerator prog. We had to reformat the drive and install all the drivers again.

[Confused]

Go to http://www.pcpitstop.com/ and run connection test. My WIN98 PC was very slow also and the receive buffer was too low. Downloaded a fix from Pcpitstop and it is now equal to my XP PC when usuing the net.
Chas

[FZWG]

Thanks for the replies.

Web accelerators are not an option. It seems those things can do more harm than good.

Will try the PCPitstop approach.

[SARGE]

Run the Tweak Test:

http://www.dslreports.com/tools

[FZWG]

Will check it out. Thanks!!

[delta013]

Originally posted by FZWG Cleaned the caches in DOS (History, temporary internet files, cookies)

Just out of curiosity, how do you do that? And why?

Thanks.

Delta013

[FZWG]

In very basic terms:

The Cache is a place where Internet Explorer locally stores copies of pages from Websites visited. Next time a particular site is accessed, the data for it is loaded from the Cache, instead of going through the procedure of accessing the actual Website.

If for some reason the Cache becomes corrupted, problems loading pages are encountered. It is a good housekeeping practice to regularly clear the Cache.

There is a Cache for Temporary Internet Files, Cookies, and History.

For a PC running W9x, cleaning the Cache in DOS, from outside of Windows is preferred by many. In essence, you are not deleting from Windows while running Windows.

Need to restart the PC in MS-DOS mode, and use the following commands at the C:\Windows> prompt, pressing the Enter key after each one:

smartdrv
deltree tempor~1
deltree cookies
deltree history
exit

For each deltree command, enter a yes (Y) after the prompt to confirm deletion.

To get to DOS in WMe, a bootdisk is needed.
At the A:\> prompt, key in:
C:
Press: Enter.

At C:\> prompt, key in:
cd windows
Press: Enter.

There is all sorts of info on this topic if you do a search.

[tigstah]

http://www.toast.net


toast.net is another site to test d/l speed

[FZWG]

Thank you.

Looks like a good one.

[azscary]

Did any of these suggestions help? Did you find something else that did?

Please post back and let us know.

[FZWG]

Tested cable connection, and it was OK. Not the greatest, but in an acceptable range.

Since there were som many problems, ended up formatting the hard drive and reinstalling W-Me.

After all of that, still having problems with 'Page cannot be displayed'.

Brain is toasted..........

[azscary]

Originally posted by SARGE Run the Tweak Test: http://www.dslreports.com/tools

This is what helped me to get mine up to speed when I was on DSL and since going to cable, I have had to make no additional adjustments. Try some of the DSL tweaks and see if that helps.

[FZWG]

Thanks for the link.

Will check it out.