Excruciatingly slow performance in IE6, but FF is blazing

[nfteblj]

This posting is not one of those "Firefox is better than IE6" posts. I
also believe that this is not about the speeds of the rendering engines
for the two browsers. Having said that...

I have an XP pro machine connected to an 8M Comcast cable connection. I
usually use IE6 as my main browser, though I have FF 1.5.1 installed on
my system as well.

Lately I've been experiencing slow speeds while using IE6... to the
point where I started wondering what kind of performance I'm really
getting out of Comcast. I went to dslreports and ran their speed test.
To my dismay, it reported that I was getting 47kbps down and 150kbps
up. Thinking this wasn't possible, I ran the tests again using a
variety of testing servers. The results varied, but not by much.
Download speeds averaged about 50kpbs, and upload speeds were
consistently higher (though not anywhere near what I should be
getting).

I then tried to use Firefox (stock, no extensions or "performance
enhancing" tweaks). It was quick to test and told me I was getting
6100kbps down/700kpbs up which is in line with what I would expect.

I tried IE6 again... dialup speeds.

Right away, my suspicion was that maybe I had a virus or some kind of
crapware going. I ran Norton 2005, Spybot 1.3, and AdAware (latest,
free version) and none reported anything other than a couple of
'tracker cookies'.

I tried restarting and re-testing... same results.

I remembered seeing a 'restore to ie defaults' option in IE6, so I
selected that and tried again. All that seemed to do is reset my home
page.

The only apps I can think of that I run regularly are CyberPatrol and
Norton 2005. They were both running when I ran these tests. I
disabled CyberPatrol and checked IE6 again with no difference in
performance.

One additional note... IE will not let me sign into some secured sites.
I can't sign in to my bank, nor can I sign in to Ebay. It just hangs
then gives an error. In Firefox, everything works fine.

I know the likely solution is to fresh-install XP, but we all know what
a pain that is. It's been almost 2 years since I installed this
fresh.

Has this happened to anyone, or does anyone have any suggestions as to
what to try? I don't mind using FireFox, but this problem is going to
nag at me until I solve it.

Thanks...

 

[Jan Il]

Hi

First, try disabling Norton anything and test again.

If still no joy the try the following:

Delete Temporary Internet Files
There's also a possibility of some corrupted files in your Temporary
Internet Files (TIF) storage. To clear these:
1. In Internet Explorer, on the Tools menu, click Internet Options, and
select the General tab
2. Under Temporary Internet files, click Delete Files, and click OK when you
are prompted to confirm the deletion

Disable any 3rd party toolbars, such as Google or Yahoo.
Disable any ad or popup blockers.
Check the Security settings are set to Medium

Uninstall and reinstall the Flash from here
Macromedia Flash Player Download Center Windows
http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash

also..

This may involve javascript. Try these two commands from
Start> Run
Type the commands in the window one at a time and hit enter after each entry
regsvr32 vbscript.dll
regsvr32 jscript.dll
You should see a confirmation message that the file has registered
successfully after each one.
Click Ok and close.

Then, refresh your scripting engine. Go to
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/downloads/list/webdev.asp
for the appropriate download.

For 2000 and XP go to
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...43-7e4b-4622-86eb-95a22b832caa&DisplayLang=en
The install includes a new jscript.dl

and...other possibilities....

Upate your video driver - IE is very hard on them -

How To Update Video Driver

If you don't know the location of your Video driver, or how to find it:
Location for XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314854
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/games/learnmore/updatingdrivers.mspx
or......
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314854
Find the information on your video driver. Then go to the website for mfg.
of the video driver and look for the update to download and install. There
may also be a Update Driver button on the dialog box you can use to go
direct to the update download site.

also........

Try reducing hardware acceleration:
Right click on the Desktop on an open area,
Properties>Settings>Advanced>Troubleshoot
Move the slider back to the left a little and test to see if that helps.
Try it at increments until you get all the way to the left end to see if
that helps.

Hope this helps.

Jan
MS MVP - IE [DTS/AumHa]
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that's why they're so contagious.

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