How to increase the speed of internet on winxp

[ITlover]

Hello

I have noticed that in winxp, the speed of internet is slow as compared to win98,is their any way I could increase the speed of internet on winxp?

Any help?


Bye

[Stryker]

At the risk of turning this into a "Firefox is better than I.E." thread, give Mozilla Firefox a try if you aren't already using it. I notice a significant speed increase from I.E. to Firefox, although I'm not sure why. Might be worth a shot.

[bailey]

your internet connection speed has nothing to do with the operating system.
if you want faster connection, contact your isp, cable or dsl are the fastes ones avaible

[rcvalencia9]

I agree with bailey.

[Marke522]

Maybe you need some more RAM. Are you using the same computer that used to have 98SE ? Is this a new computer that only had XP ?

XP is a real resource hog and requires a lot more memory than the other operating systems.

Maybe you just need to power cycle the modem. Unplug for about 30 seconds with the computer off. Wait for all the lights to stop blinking, then start the pc. After that, go here and do a speed test. http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/

4.5 megabits per second

Communications 4.5 megabits per second
Storage 549 kilobytes per second
1MB file download 1.9 seconds
Subjective rating Awesome

As you can see, my connection could not be faster.

[mjkovis]

Spyware or Adware may need to be deleted. I agree with baily as well though. Do you have Spybot S&D or Ad-Aware SE?

AK

[ITlover]

From which reliable site can I download Firefox browser?
Is it free?

Regards,

[Spaz06]

Originally Posted by ITlover From which reliable site can I download Firefox browser? Is it free? Regards,

http://www.mozilla.org/

I recommend you post your computer specs, so we can try and fix your problem rather then cover it up. You may not see any improvement, if you need a memory upgrade, or your system has spyware/adware/viruses.

[ITlover]

Well

I have deleted Norton Anti-Virus from the system and I have noticed that their is a little increase in the speed of internet, I think it is happening because windowsxp uses more memory then other windows, I have to increase the RAM in my computer.

At the moment, I have 128MB RAM and windowsxp uses 64MB RAM, so I have to add another 64MB RAM inorder to increase the memory to 256MB and I think it will surely increase the speed of internet.

What do you think?

Waiting for reply

Bye

[mjkovis]

It would be more helpful if you could post your system specs. That can help us diagnos this problem much better.

Originally Posted by ITlover At the moment, I have 128MB RAM and windowsxp uses 64MB RAM, so I have to add another 64MB RAM inorder to increase the memory to 256MB and I think it will surely increase the speed of internet.

Yes, increasing the amount of your RAM will speed up your computer and help out with surfing the web quite a bit in some cases. It will not make your connection faster though (Stryker mentioned below and I forgot to clarify)! As I mentioned above, please post your system specs so we can point you in the right direction.

AK

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by ITlover At the moment, I have 128MB RAM and windowsxp uses 64MB RAM, so I have to add another 64MB RAM inorder to increase the memory to 256MB and I think it will surely increase the speed of internet.

Additional RAM likely will NOT increase your Internet speed as the speed of your internet depends on your connection speed (i.e. Broadband, Dial-up, etc...). You can have a top-of-the-line PC and if your bandwidth is very low it won't make any difference what you have for CPU, RAM, etc...

I would say, contact you ISP like bailey said earlier. They may have a solution for you, or perhaps an upgrade (i.e. modem or increased plan/package).

[netnamakan]

Additional RAM likely will NOT increase your Internet speed

I agree with this to some extent, however 128mb for xp is on the low side, and even with 256mb you would see a large jump in performance in generall.

what connection are you on now? sorry if I missed it in the thread. but if you need to go faster you can almost always find a 768kbs adsl deal for 25-30 bucks a month.

namakan

[mjkovis]

Originally Posted by Stryker Additional RAM likely will NOT increase your Internet speed as the speed of your internet depends on your connection speed (i.e. Broadband, Dial-up, etc...). You can have a top-of-the-line PC and if your bandwidth is very low it won't make any difference what you have for CPU, RAM, etc...

In his case he would see the difference though with surfing the web and not connection speed. You are still right though, but he only stated having 128 MB of RAM running Win XP and using IE. So upgrading the amount of his RAM would help IE. RAM of course will not help the connection speed whatsoever and I agree with you and baily both to contact the ISP as well. Sorry I forgot to clarify above... Dont want to mislead.

AK

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by Acid-Klutch In his case he would see the difference though with surfing the web and not connection speed. You are still right though, but he only stated having 128 MB of RAM running Win XP and using IE. So upgrading the amount of his RAM would help IE. RAM of course will not help the connection speed whatsoever and I agree with you and baily both to contact the ISP as well. Sorry I forgot to clarify above... Dont want to mislead. AK

Ah... very true AK. I see what you are saying and I too would recommend getting a little more RAM to increase your performance in general. The low amount of RAM could actually be slowing down the browser itself and not the connection speed. Gotcha
• • • • •
And ITlover, I would recommend at least doubling up on your RAM and I think you will be pretty impressed at the performance increase you see throughout your entire system, regardless of surfing speeds.
Sorry if I've confused you at all.
Stryker

[Spaz06]

Originally Posted by Stryker Ah... very true AK. I see what you are saying and I too would recommend getting a little more RAM to increase your performance in general. The low amount of RAM could actually be slowing down the browser itself and not the connection speed. Gotcha • • • • • And ITlover, I would recommend at least doubling up on your RAM and I think you will be pretty impressed at the performance increase you see throughout your entire system, regardless of surfing speeds. Sorry if I've confused you at all. Stryker

Ditto

Spyware/adware will also slow down your browser almost to a halt. I consider 256 the bare minimum for windows xp. 128 will run, but sluggish.

[bailey]

yes, but I consider 512 to be the minium for decent performance, more would be better.
I personally use 512.

[Spaz06]

Originally Posted by bailey yes, but I consider 512 to be the minium for decent performance, more would be better. I personally use 512.

Agree, thats what I ment by bare minimum. Multitasking isn't really an option with 256. When I work on friends computers with xp installed I alway recommend running at least 512.

[Marke522]

It would be a good idea to find out what kind of processor he has first, and how old the entire system is. If he has a Pentium 133 or an AMD 350 mhz then maybe the ram would be a waste of money. Just take what he would be spending and put that amount towards a new computer.

HP and DELL offer some 1/2 way decent packages at affordable prices, which can usually be upgraded later for better performance as the money becomes availiable.

[Spaz06]

Originally Posted by Spaz06 http://www.mozilla.org/ I recommend you post your computer specs, so we can try and fix your problem rather then cover it up. You may not see any improvement, if you need a memory upgrade, or your system has spyware/adware/viruses.

Please post your specs, so we can better help you.

[ITlover]

Hello

I have used Mac Cafee on winxp but that made my system slow, then I deleted it and replaced it with norton anti-virus but that also made my system slow.Iam looking for an anti-virus which is more efficient and powerful then mac cafee and norton anti-viruses and does not slow my system down?


Regards,

[Marke522]

You may have too many programs running on startup. Virus scanners do not usually require that many resources. AVG is a good one, many of us here at PC-Mech use it. www.grisoft.com

Please post your specs, so we can better help you. After we know what kind of computer you are using, we will be better able to make suggestions.

[rcvalencia9]

sometime mcafee and norton affects speed. because of the ad-blockin and script blocking features.

[regans cortina]

I had a pc that had win xp on and 128 mb. it ran absoloutely awful. 256 is the bare minimum for xp as previously stated above. upping the memory to 512 will see a massive difference in speed in all areas.
He will definately need to do this BEFORE looking at anything else.

[glc]

To put speed in perspective - I worked on a computer last night with XP - it's a Celeron 1.3 (100 FSB, 256k cache) with 384mb ram and an ATA 100 hard drive. It's a dog compared to my Win2000 machine with a P3-800 (100 FSB, 256k cache) with a gig of ram....and get this, a hard drive running at ATA 33.

One more time, ITlover, please post your specs.

[mjkovis]

Originally Posted by ITlover I have used Mac Cafee on winxp but that made my system slow, then I deleted it and replaced it with norton anti-virus but that also made my system slow.Iam looking for an anti-virus which is more efficient and powerful then mac cafee and norton anti-viruses and does not slow my system down?

I suggest if you want to purchase a good IS suite go with PC-Cillin's Internet Security 2005 from Trend Micro. Someone else above mentioned AVG, which you can download their version for free.

AK

P.S. Once again, please post some specs up for us!

[Jon2055]

here's mine, I have cable.

4.3 megabits per second
Communications 4.3 megabits per second
Storage 526.7 kilobytes per second
1MB file download 1.9 seconds
Subjective rating Awesome

[sataraid0]

bailey, i agree completly, it dosent matter what OS you are using.

Also find it very difficult to compare speed on internet, because of so many variables, such as time of day, site you are using etc etc. Sometimes, your browser just hits a glitch and you have to start over or restart again, and bingo it connects almost instantly. Have had that happen. Who knows why.

Here, Comcast just announced it is uping the dwnload speed to 4 mb (or may be gb, get confused) for everyone by the end of March. Hooray!

Have to say that most of the time, my connections have been satisfactory.

Regards....................Sterling

[ktkendall]

Originally Posted by sataraid0 bailey, i agree completly, it dosent matter what OS you are using.

True it doesn't matter what OS but now that you have XP there are probably several reasons it does not seem as fast as it did on win98. XP would do better with more ram and you do want to keep what is running in the backround to only what is necessary. If you upgraded from win98 instead of clean install of XP then that is usually not as good as aclean install of XP. Try here:
www.dslreports.com
go down the left side, click on tests and tools, and run the tweak test, that will give you some great info and ways to speed things up. Read thisweeks newsletter here at PCmech also cause it has featured the speedupmypc site..

[shazam]

My comp. has over 1g ram I also run trend micro internet security. But I also have a very bad tel. line. Tel co. said there is nothing they can do. Last test 20.9. I would run a test first to check speed,then check for noise on the line and disconnect any portable phones in the house to see if they are causeing noise on your line.Then run another test. See if the speed improves. Also all of the above. I have no dsl available in my area.