Slow internet on 1 of 3 on network all of a sudden

[AnotherMuggle]

Hi Everyone,
For some reason my PC suddenly has a very slow internet connection. I have another PC and a Laptop both connected via the same router that are having no issues and download speeds are around 200Kb/s.

I have scanned the PC for spyware etc and have scanned for viruses but the system is clean. I am having no other issues other than the internet being slow and I just can't think what might be causing it.

The computer is using a wireless card, as are the others on the network and it is reporting to have a 54Mb/s connection and the signal quality is "very good".

Any suggestions would be thankfully received.
Tom

[Ob1]

can you use a wired connection temporarily and see if it has any speed issues?

do you have any encryption on this wireless network?

is there any downloading or file sharing programs running on the other two pcs?

if you ping a website from the slow computer and normal pc, do you get the same response times?

what are your download speeds on the slow pc? where are you downloading from that is giving you 200kb/s?

[AnotherMuggle]

Thanks for the response Ob1.

can you use a wired connection temporarily and see if it has any speed issues?

Wired connections not really an option...it is my landlady's router and is too far away from my computer to plug in with an ethernet even if she allowed me to do so.

do you have any encryption on this wireless network?

The wireless network doesn't have any encryption enabled, she is using MAC address filtering and has only the IP addresses for the 3 machines being handed out by DHCP...they are static's on each machine.

is there any downloading or file sharing programs running on the other two pcs?

My machine is slow even when the other two aren't even powered on, but neither are downloading either.

if you ping a website from the slow computer and normal pc, do you get the same response times?

Ping www.google.com

Slow Machine:
Minimum 26ms, Maximum 38ms, Average 31ms.

Normal Machine:
Minimum 25ms, Maximum 29ms, Average 27ms.

As you can see, not a huge amount of difference but some difference none the less.

what are your download speeds on the slow pc? where are you downloading from that is giving you 200kb/s?

Slow PC is downloading at 9Kb/s max. from the same site that gets 200Kb/s on the normal one. These speeds are from www.choons.net. However, even general browsing of websites is slow on the slow machine.

Thanks for the help

[Ob1]

do you have any 3rd party firewalls running on the slow pc besides the xp firewall?

[toomyg]

are you using the cards connection utility? I didn't notice if you were using windows xp if so and you have not used it try the wireless zero configuration utility thats built into XP and see if that helps and/or try reinstalling the card if all else fails

[AnotherMuggle]

Originally Posted by Ob1 do you have any 3rd party firewalls running on the slow pc besides the xp firewall?

Nope...just Windows Firewall. I just can't understand what's caused this to happen. There are no alien processes running and the Wireless isn't being hogged by anything. It looks as though it's taking long for the computer to comunicate with the router for some reason.

[AnotherMuggle]

Originally Posted by toomyg are you using the cards connection utility? I didn't notice if you were using windows xp if so and you have not used it try the wireless zero configuration utility thats built into XP and see if that helps and/or try reinstalling the card if all else fails

I am using Windows Zero Config.

[AnotherMuggle]

When I use Firefox to browse the web I can see in the bottom left of the window that it is "Connecting to ......" and "Waiting for ......." that are taking a long time.

Internet Explorer does a similar thing sitting on "Opening page ...." for a long time.

[Ob1]

have you asked your landlady to reset the router. do you have any pull with your landlady and remove the mac filtering, and instead setup wireless encryption

[AnotherMuggle]

Originally Posted by Ob1 have you asked your landlady to reset the router. do you have any pull with your landlady and remove the mac filtering, and instead setup wireless encryption

She has reset the router 3 times and I have seen that the connection is fine on her machine and so is it on my laptop.

I wish I did have a bit more control over the internet but it was set up by one of her techie mates and I'm not allowed to play

[toomyg]

Is there any other networks near by or cordless phones that might be messing it up?
Have you tried changing the routers wireless channel?

[AnotherMuggle]

Originally Posted by toomyg Is there any other networks near by or cordless phones that might be messing it up? Have you tried changing the routers wireless channel?

There are no other networks showing in the "View Avaiable Wireless Connections" and my phone's no closer to the PC than normal.

Again, I wish I could play with the router but honestly, I don't stand a lot of chance so feel uneasy about asking.

Thanks for all your input guys

[andper10]

I've heard that 2.4 Ghz Wireless phones can interfere with Wireless internet. If you have any wireless phones, unplug them and see if that helps. Thats all that I can think of though. Is your wireless adapter USB or PCI? If it is USB, try adding an extension cable and mounting it up on your wall or somewhere in the open. If it is PCI, you could try getting one of those range expanding antennas. You could also switch it to a different PCI slot and see if that helps. You could also put the known good wireless adapter into the the PC that is causing you troubles and see if that works. You could also see if your bad adapter works with other computer(s). Or, you could use your laptop in the area where the desktop that is causing you problems is located. Hope you get it working better.

[toomyg]

Did the land lady mess with any setting on the router lately?

[Ob1]

Originally Posted by tomkear2006 I wish I did have a bit more control over the internet but it was set up by one of her techie mates and I'm not allowed to play

it sounds like the landlady has her own techie guy come in to make all necessary changes to the router configuration.

[toomyg]

tomkear2006 is there any setting on your wireless card that you could check and see if it set at a slower speed?

[AnotherMuggle]

Thanks for all the help guys.

I decided that since I have all my data on a seperate hard disk anyway, it was a quicker solution to do a reinstall of Windows. Everything is fine again now so it must have been some software setting that had gone screwy...no idea what though.

Anyway, next few days are going to consist of me getting it back the way it was (everything except the dodgy intenet ).

[mojo]

Sorry I didn't get to this thread earlier, but this may very well have solved your problem.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/N...nSockFix.shtml

[Ob1]

tom,

i recomend you make an image of your system in case you run into other problems, that way it only takes 20 minutes to restore your pc to a working state.

you can download acronis 7.0 for free.

just register here:
http://www.acronis.com/mag/vnu-ati7

and download it here:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.c...614041dce6fb6a

[toomyg]

Originally Posted by tomkear2006 Thanks for all the help guys. I decided that since I have all my data on a seperate hard disk anyway, it was a quicker solution to do a reinstall of Windows. Everything is fine again now so it must have been some software setting that had gone screwy...no idea what though. Anyway, next few days are going to consist of me getting it back the way it was (everything except the dodgy intenet ).

There must be something that changed to make it run slow now! You don't have any programs that you ran that could have caused this by changing a system setting? have you tried to reinstall software for wireless NIC? is all the other PC clean from viruses? theres got to be something it seems like a waist of time to reinstall win if it might happen again

[toomyg]

Originally Posted by tomkear2006 Thanks for all the help guys. I decided that since I have all my data on a seperate hard disk anyway, it was a quicker solution to do a reinstall of Windows. Everything is fine again now so it must have been some software setting that had gone screwy...no idea what though. Anyway, next few days are going to consist of me getting it back the way it was (everything except the dodgy intenet ).

Opps I see you already reinstalled windows OK never mind my post last