my connection is really slow

[invisible_wall]

Starting last week, my normally fast cable connection started acting up and became REALLY slow. Sometimes it would just downright refuse to load some pages and there were timeouts galore. I didn't change any settings and all my connections were tight. I have a linksys router and I'm positive that it's working 100% right. My sister who uses a laptop in our house says that her internet is really slow too. Strangely however, when I ran my p2p file sharing program (is it okay to talk about that here?), I noticed my download speed was UP from before my internet was slow.

What's the problem? Should I contact my ISP? I flushed my dns and that didn't help

 

[mikesgroovin]

What OS are you and your sister using?
Is the linksys gateway/router wireless?
Are you noticing this all the time or at different times during the day?
I realize that you mentioned both of you are experiencing speed issues, but have you changed or installed anything recently?

 

[invisible_wall]

Yeah, it's a wireless router. I'm using XP and I believe my sister is running Mac OS X.

I'm pretty sure we didn't install anything. I was downloading a lot of stuff before my connection became slow (mostly mods for Oblivion), would that have something to do with it?

 

[mikesgroovin]

Going to go down 2 separate roads here just in order to try to isolate the problem and meet somewhere in the middle, hopefully.

The very first thing that you should do, in my opinion, is call your ISP. They may be experiencing some other similar calls since you and your sister are both experiencing the same issues. Just tell them the same information, symptoms, et cetera. It could be a rather quick fix to a problem that they already know about.

If your call yields little to no results:

1) Do you live in a populated area, enough that a neighbor could be using your wireless connection?
2) Are you using any encryption on the connection?
3) Since you are using XP, have you used the "repair" option yet for your Network Connection? It does some cache clearing that you may find helpful.
4) I know that you mentioned that your hardware device is, in fact, functioning properly, but have you made sure that it is on the latest firmware version available from Linksys?

So, just to confirm, you haven't downloaded or installed anything other than mods for Oblivion?

 

[invisible_wall]

Hm... this is weird. I just tried playing CoD4 online and I had 100 ping (pretty much the same as before) with no lag. Looks like this slowness is mostly internet webpage surfing exclusive.

 

[mikesgroovin]

Interesting, yet not surprising

What browser(s) on the Windows box...
(not worried about the Mac at this point)

You know what HiJackThis is? If you want to, mosey on over to the Virus - Spyware Protection / Detection - Computer Forums area, have a seat on the examination table and then the doctor will be with you as soon as humanly possible. Don't forget your insurance card and ID.

Just make sure to read the stickies over there/tutorials, to-dos/to-don'ts/et cetera. , tech forums has this thing with only having a member of the Security Team replying to your HiJackThis log thread... so it's pretty dependable....about as dependable as 1980s hair bands trying to make a reunion tour 20 years later because they ran out of drug money.

 

[EricB]

all that downloading is hogging your bandwidth.

 

[invisible_wall]

I ran a few virus and spyware scans and got rid of some mildly nasty stuff but still not speed increase
I haven't tried Hijackthis yet but I doubt it's due to anything on my computer since my sister's internet is still slow for somethings. I have tried IE7 and the latest Firefox and the speed problems are the same for both. I'll try calling my ISP this weekend. This is really weird still, downloads, online gaming and torrents are fast but the other stuff is still slow as ****.


This is really weird. Downloads, online gaming and torrents are fast but the other stuff is still slow as crap. Also, my connection times out/does nothing when I try to upload images anywhere

Merged ~Mak

 

[EricB]

all that downloading is hogging your bandwidth.

hello...........

after you seeded your ratio, remove the torrent from the download

 

[Stryker_77]

Try changin ur web browser