Internet Problem

  • Thread starter BMW POWER
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BMW POWER

BMW POWER

804
Hi there, last night while browsing my PC suddenly developed an annoying problem. I was on YouTube and all of a sudden the browser stopped displaying picture previews of the videos. I thought it was just YouTube so checked another site that uses lots of pics, same thing. By now I also noticed that the general speed of browsing had slowed down a lot so tried all the usual, PC reboot, Anti virus scan, Spy Bot, Ad Aware and even a system restore point. None of these worked so I checked my second PC downstairs thinking that it must be a problem with my service provider but that computer is working perfectly as is the PSP and my work laptop. I then tried swapping the ethernet cables and router ports around on the two PC's thinking maybe a dodgy cable or router port but still nothing and I even switched to a WiFi dongle instead of a cable to check if its my network card thats at fault, Still nothing so out of desperation backed all my data up and reformated my hard drive then put a fresh copy of XP with SP2 on there. Left it to do its business then tried again today only to find the problem is still there. Im completely stuck to what the problem could be and even more confused that its still occuring even after a fresh install. Was just curious if any of you guys got any ideas before I throw the whole thing out the window! :mad:
 
It doesn't sound like it's an ISP issue if other devices are working fine but just to give us some kind of an idea, run speedtest on both computers and let us know the results.
 
Thanks for getting back to me. Just finished running speed test on both PC's and the wireless laptop and came back with the following results. All computers are running Windows XP Home with SP2 and the latest version of Mozilla Firefox (also tried IE but still having the same problem)

PC No.1 (the machine with the internet problem)
Download: 1999 kb/s
Upload: 244 kb/s
Server: London
Ping: 63 ms
Distance: <50 mi

PC No.2 (fully functioning machine with no problems)
Download: 2001 kb/s
Upload: 243 kb/s
Server: London
Ping: 77 ms
Distance: <50 mi

Wireless Laptop
Download: 1990 kb/s
Upload: 242 kb/s
Server: London
Ping: 78 ms
Distance: <50 mi
 
With a difference between all the computers being only 11kb/s, it's definitely not an ISP issue, unless your supposed to be getting more bandwidth than that.

You didn't recently change anything on a wireless router or modem, did you? I changed my firewall settings a few months ago, forgot that I had done so and then couldn't figure out why my 2 TiVo's couldn't connect. Ends up it was a blocked port. :rolleyes:
 
When I saw the results I also thought its not an ISP issue. Thats the bit I dont understand, The PC was fine then all of a sudden stop displaying pics and the browsing speed dropped dramatically now its lucky if I can even view a page without getting a timeout error. None of the settings within the firewall or router has been changed and I just made another check to make sure they were all in order, I even tried turning all antivirus and firewalls off but still no luck :indiff:
 
When you say you have configured ports, which ones? Have you got port 80 going to a specific machine, or any other internet ports that are being taken away from the problem machine?
 
whoa...and this is just DSL

Download: 2176
upload:655
ping 52
distance ~50 mi.

usually, when I have a weird slowdown like BMW POWER is describing, it's "tracking cookies". when I get rid of those, it picks right back up.

I had to yarp at the ISP for an hour and a half when we first got this thing. turned out it was a server problem on the Provider's part.
 
Yeah that was my first thought that maybe it was some sort of spyware or tracking cookies but after getting rid of them and then doing a full reformat to my HD the problem is still there. To respond to DQuaN I got my terminology mixed up in my first post in regards to the router what I meen was that I simply swapped around the ethernet cables on both PC's to check if it was a dodgy connection or something along those lines, Having very little knowledge of messing with routers and ports I havent gone that deep into it yet but if theres anything you could suggest I check and how to go about doing it that would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers guys
 
Just tried resetting the router again to no success, Im slwoly running out of ideas so was thinking of maybe reformatting again? But to be honest I dont think this will be much help either.
 
Can you give the answer to these 2 questions please?

- Can you access the router with the pc?
- Can you access the other pc's in your house over the network?
 
Yesterday I reformatted the PC once again and for a few hours after the reformat everything was working perfectly. Then once again all of a sudden the internet dies down and started displaying all sorts of timeout errors and lack of pictures. In regards to DustDriver's questions yes I can access my router from the PC but I never got around to setting up file sharing with other PC's in my network so its a feature I never used anyway. One thing I have noticed is that the timeout and error messages are quite selective and only affecting certain sites some of the time. This problem is starting to get tiresome now and after the second reformat Im really out of ideas :indiff:
 
Sounds maybe like the network card is playing up. After the reformat it worked, then i'd assume windows update could have put new drivers for it. Have you downloaded drivers from your nics manufacturer site?
 
I installed the drivers that came with the motherboard for the network card and after no luck I found some updated ones but still the same results. I then disabled the network card and switched to a WiFi dongle but Im still getting the same problems as when it was connected with an ethernet cable.
 
Thanks for the link Sprite, gave everything on the page a go but still didnt fix the problem. But some good news (sort of) I think I found the cause of the problem being something to do with Firefox. Today I restored to an earlier point just before I installed any software and was just using the basic IE 6 that comes with XP, would you beleive it the problem had gone away. Downloaded the latest version of Firefox and straight away the error messages and timeouts returned, affecting not only Firefox but IE to. Restored back to the earlier state and once again the problem has fixed itself and IE is running smoothly again so that concludes to me that maybe Firefox is to blame but I dont understand why, all the other PC's in the house are running the same version of it and so was my computer for the last few months without a glitch. At the moment Im running IE 7 with all the latest updates and all seems fine so going to run this today and tomorow and see if the problem comes back. I hope theres a way I can sort Firefox out, I really hate using IE :ouch:
 
why didn't you SAY "firefox" and "timeouts"!? i stopped using Firefox when it constantly timed out the minute we got the DSL modem. there's something in the firefox build that doesn't like higher speed connections.

even when I update firefox, the "hang up on lag" problem doesn't go away. we've had problems with all the browsers. IE and it's clones attract all the spam and spyware, anymore. I've been swapping between Slimbrowser (it seems thave less glitches than IE, even for a Clone), and Opera (which I'm using ATM).
 
Yeah I should of known from the start to try removing Firefox lol but now I know. Just this very day I downloaded Opera and have to say Im impressed, the only thing Im not to happy with is the built in download manager which doesnt automaticaly close or remove the completed downloads after its finished. On Firefox I had a program called DownloadThemAll which was a great download manager, Im just having a look for something similar for Opera. But at the moment I have a working internet browser so just going to stick with it for now and see what happens, anyway cheers guys for all the suggestions and help its been much appreciated 👍
 
There isn't a problem with Firefox and DSL. I'm using FF 2.0.0.12 with a 7meg DSL, and have been for a while, with no issues.

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Late last year I was running around 5500k, so they must be running new lines. I'm still about 1000k short, though.
 
I think a lot of programs now automatically assume the user is Computer Savvy. i know I had to learn to be to keep up with the maintenence on this thing. browsers are just like Virus and Spyware programs. they constantly need updated :P

Opera has as many tack-ons as any other browser. try playing with it a little.
 

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