Old computer (7-8 years) having internet connection issues.

[GhOsT1321]

My father's HP Pavilion 533w
Can barely connect to the internet. Odd thing is that Firefox rarely, if ever, works. Internet Explorer will not ever connect. But, an old version of AOL (7.0) will connect to the internet, just very slowly.
When I do an internet speed test I get 0.00 download speed and 0.18 upload speed.
Our ISP is charter and our internet speed is 10 MBPS Which I get on my computer just fine.

I have scanned the computer with Malwarebytes anti-malware, and NOD 32.
I removed everything that they found but, it did nothing to improve internet connection performance.

I would scan with more things, but when scans generally take 13-30 hours, I tend to get impatient.


This is on a Windows XP operating system, all parts are whichever ones were sent from the factory, except the addition of a 512 MB of RAM, totaling 687MB.

 

[Trotter]

Ouch! If it were me, I would back up his files on external media, then format the drive and reinstall. Seriously. An installation that old is probably seriously screwed, especially if it has seen regular use.

Outside of that I would still back up his files and then cobble together enough dough to build him something usable.
1. AMD Athlon II X2 245 Regor 2.9GHz Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor (Model: ADX245OCGQBOX)
2. ASUS AM3/AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA Geforce 7025/nForce 630a Micro ATX AMD Motherboard (Model: M2N68-AM PLUS)
3. G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory (Model: F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ)
4. Rosewill Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case with 350W 20+4 pin connector Power Supply (Model: R103A)
Combo Price: $186.99

Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Blue WD2500AAJS 250GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
$42.99

Newegg.com - ASUS Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - CD / DVD Burners
$18.99

 

[GhOsT1321]

Exactly what I was thinking Trotter...
My father refuses to get a new computer however. He insists that computer prices will fall drastically soon, then he may get a new computer. That build looks great Trotter however, at the moment, it's out of the option.

Best thing is...The hard drive was one of the high failure rate ones. I think it was called a Maxtor? It hasn't given us any problems though, I guess we got lucky.
heh, it would make you cringe if you knew what all has happened to that computer.

Guess I'll get to reinstalling soon...
Thank you for the information Trotter

 

[Trotter]

De nada. Glad to be of help.

 

[KSoD]

Sadly Trotter is right about 1 thing. When it takes that long for a simple scan to finish, cause the CPU and RAM speeds dont allow for it to finish any faster, then your best bet is going to be start over. It will take you far less time to reinstall Windows than do all the appropriate scans. Even with an old PC like that your looking at about an hour maybe 2 most to reinstall fresh. Compared to the 15+ to do a scan. When you can save yourself that much time it just makes sense.