What can cause a computer to have slow internet access?

Question

Please don't say the internet connection because I have a fast connection and there's no way I could fix it if it was broken. I'm talking about my computer. I have a fast computer with a fast internet connection, yet it seems to do everyone on the internet slow. Even just opening an Internet Explorer window and going to www.yahoo.com takes five seconds or more. No, I don't have peer to peer file sharing running. No, I'm not sharing my internet connection with a router. Something is wrong with my computer.

Answer 1

factors on your computer that can impact your speed are;

Viruses, adware and spyware - most likely cause

try the following free programmes
Ad-Aware SE personal to get rid of ads and spyware
http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/
AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic
http://www.free-av.com/

Memory

its possible that you are low on memory - this will affect how quickly applications load. If you have a lot of other programmes starting and running at system startup they use up memory. is it just IE or do other programmes load slowly.

Hard Drive - if it is close to full or highly fragmented this can slow you down.

Always worth clearing the cache of your browser.

Try Firefox - this free mozillla browser is fast at starting.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Its also possible that your registry has been corrupted and your tcp/ip settings are now wrong. The app, TCP Optimizer, can help you:
http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php

another possible cause is if you have a bad ethernet cable from the pc to your broadband modem. If you have a cable modem it is possible for it to connect but have a poor cable running to the network or too much loss (too mnay splitters)


BTW - you mentioned that you are not charing with a router. its highly recommended to have a router - which acts as a hardware firewall - to protect yourself. or a SW firewall such as ZoneAlarm. http://www.zonelabs.com/ - look for the free download.

it probably is worth checking your internet connection using one of the free services below to make sure that it is running to specification. call your ISP if it is consistently more than 10% below what they sold you after you have tested it at a non-peak time.

Answer 2

There are two main measures of network speed, bandwidth and latency. Bandwidth is the width of the pipe, Latency is the minimum time for a packet of information to be delivered from source to destination. Different measurement units tend to be for different nations. 256KBps, 512KBps, 8Mbps are raw measurements, but some places talk T1/T2/T3/OC3.

The other factor of speed is that a server at the other end is responding to your request, and that processing to deliver a response can cause a delay as well as the servers network speed (that can be flooded). Other factors like your own station processing, viruses, spyware and network assaults can cause internet speed to falter.

try ipconfig from a cmd line, and ping the default gateway address. thuis will give you a latency.

It also depends on where the source and destination are, the quantity of hops (or junction points) in between.

Windows XP SP2 has a concurrent connection limit
The Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU)

Answer 3

An internet connection can become slow or stop working due to a number of reasons depending on the type of the connection. Many of the problems can be solved by making software changes or small hardware corrections. Detailed instructions at http://tinyurl.com/yl62gz

Answer 4

Not necessarily your computer, do you have an antivirus program running such as norton internet security, if so that will slow down your comp immensely on the net because its running live scans on each page as you open them, so it will slow them down as it scans them for viruses and spyware etc. this will happen especially if you have both the windows firewall and another one running at the same time. check it out by switching of your security programme for a minute or two and trying to access the net, if it opens quicker theres your answer, also you might try a utilities program, i would recommend tuneup utilities 2006 this will optimise your machine and configure it for your speed of connection, also make sure your cookies and history are cleaned out on a regular basis by using ccleaner.
These programmes are available from the following sites:

http://www.tune-up.com
http://www.ccleaner.com

Answer 5

Hard drive fragmentation is a major cause of slowness. Fragmentation is created as files are created, edited or as files and programs are downloaded, they get broken up and saved wherever free space is available. Then the computer has to work extra hard to restore and open or run these files and programs. As it gets worse it can cause, slows, program hangs, freezes, crashes etc. Defrag your computer. Diskeeper is a great product.

Answer 6

Once a week go into delete you temporary internet files, cookies, and history. It will do wonders for your internet speed.

Answer 7

What kind of firewall, anti-virus, and pop-up blocker and maybe even anti-phishing software are you running. Especially at startup, the first time after logon.

Answer 8

It's probably your internet setting. Go to this site and run some speed test to see where the bottleneck is http://www.speedguide.net/ and download the TCP optimizer here http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php

Answer 9

not enough memory??
maybe you need to defragmentize.
Do you have a lot of pictures and or music on your pc???

Answer 10

it might be the amount of ram you have or your computer will explode either one