Inconsistent speed

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Guest

Hello,

I'm having issues with internet speed. The computer in question is a Dell
laptop, XP Home, IE6 & Opera. I work at home most of the time and split the
rest of my time in two different offices. I have wireless network access in
all places. At home, I have cable internet and I have no problems with speed.
At both offices, there is DSL and both will have speed issues. It also seems
to cause IE6 to hang up. For instance, at home, I'll begin to type "weather"
into the address bar and by the time I've got "wea" it's already suggesting
weather.com. At the offices, I'll type "weather", but it'll display the each
letter very very slowly (one letter every 3 seconds, so after 10 seconds or
so it only is displayed "wea"). Then suddenly, the rest of the word will pop
up and everything will seem normal, although the speed is very slow. The
exception being google searches, which happen plenty quickly, but loading any
page turned up in the search is reminiscent of dial-up.
At the office I'm currently at, I've just wired the laptop directly to the
router and it didn't improve the speed at all (shouldn't wired speeds be
better than wireless?). Meanwhile, the desktop across the room has no speed
issues at all. Anyone have ideas as to what I can do to solve this? It kills
my productivity when I'm at these offices. Thanks.
 
Chuck said:
If you're typing is inconsistent, this is symptomatic of a CPU overload problem,
not an Internet speed problem.

Get Process Explorer, and set it up to watch CPU %, and Context Switch Delta (a
more granular version of CPU %). Free from Microsoft. Find out what your CPU
is doing, when your typing goes this way.
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/essential-tools-for-desktop-and.html#ProcessExplorer>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/essential-tools-for-desktop-and.html#ProcessExplorer
Click to expand...

Hi Chuck. I appreciate the help. I'm in the process of downloading this
program (I've always been interested in something like this but never really
looked for anything). I'll let you know what it turns up, but I thought the
same thing before. So, I've had the processes tab opened in the task manager
while this was happening and had the processor almost completely idle. Again,
I'll let you know what it finds.
Back to the hang-ups, it's not just in the typing. If I click a link that
opens a new window, the new window pops up straight away, but will sit there
blank (no status bar on the bottom, no "Opening such and such webpage...",
nothing to indicate that it's about to do anything. Then, usually 10-15
seconds later, it'll start to load the page it was supposed to. Additionally,
if I'm siging in to something (web-based email, etc), I'll type my username,
then tab to the password box and type the password, then I'll hit enter. Once
again, nothing will happen. But, 10-15 seconds later, starts to process the
login. The boggling thing is that it never happens at home, only at the
offices.
The other thing is that when IE is being slow, no other programs will be. IE
is acting like the computer is bogged down, but Excel will be having no
issues at all. Let me know if that sheds any more light on the situation and
I'll post back with my results from the process explorer. Thanks again.
 
Hello,

I'm having issues with internet speed. The computer in question is a Dell
laptop, XP Home, IE6 & Opera. I work at home most of the time and split the
rest of my time in two different offices. I have wireless network access in
all places. At home, I have cable internet and I have no problems with speed.
At both offices, there is DSL and both will have speed issues. It also seems
to cause IE6 to hang up. For instance, at home, I'll begin to type "weather"
into the address bar and by the time I've got "wea" it's already suggesting
weather.com. At the offices, I'll type "weather", but it'll display the each
letter very very slowly (one letter every 3 seconds, so after 10 seconds or
so it only is displayed "wea"). Then suddenly, the rest of the word will pop
up and everything will seem normal, although the speed is very slow. The
exception being google searches, which happen plenty quickly, but loading any
page turned up in the search is reminiscent of dial-up.
At the office I'm currently at, I've just wired the laptop directly to the
router and it didn't improve the speed at all (shouldn't wired speeds be
better than wireless?). Meanwhile, the desktop across the room has no speed
issues at all. Anyone have ideas as to what I can do to solve this? It kills
my productivity when I'm at these offices. Thanks.
Click to expand...

If you're typing is inconsistent, this is symptomatic of a CPU overload problem,
not an Internet speed problem.

Get Process Explorer, and set it up to watch CPU %, and Context Switch Delta (a
more granular version of CPU %). Free from Microsoft. Find out what your CPU
is doing, when your typing goes this way.
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/essential-tools-for-desktop-and.html#ProcessExplorer>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/essential-tools-for-desktop-and.html#ProcessExplorer
 
Hi Chuck. I appreciate the help. I'm in the process of downloading this
program (I've always been interested in something like this but never really
looked for anything). I'll let you know what it turns up, but I thought the
same thing before. So, I've had the processes tab opened in the task manager
while this was happening and had the processor almost completely idle. Again,
I'll let you know what it finds.
Back to the hang-ups, it's not just in the typing. If I click a link that
opens a new window, the new window pops up straight away, but will sit there
blank (no status bar on the bottom, no "Opening such and such webpage...",
nothing to indicate that it's about to do anything. Then, usually 10-15
seconds later, it'll start to load the page it was supposed to. Additionally,
if I'm siging in to something (web-based email, etc), I'll type my username,
then tab to the password box and type the password, then I'll hit enter. Once
again, nothing will happen. But, 10-15 seconds later, starts to process the
login. The boggling thing is that it never happens at home, only at the
offices.
The other thing is that when IE is being slow, no other programs will be. IE
is acting like the computer is bogged down, but Excel will be having no
issues at all. Let me know if that sheds any more light on the situation and
I'll post back with my results from the process explorer. Thanks again.
Click to expand...

Well, if you don't see a problem in Process Explorer, I'd check the DNS
settings. Run "ipconfig /all" on this computer, and one at the office with no
problem.
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/reading-ipconfig-and-diagnosing.html>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/reading-ipconfig-and-diagnosing.html

And look for a DNS problem, in general.
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2006/05/identifying-dns-problem-in-your.html>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2006/05/identifying-dns-problem-in-your.html

Then a good malware check, ending with HijackThis, and expert advice at DSLR
Forums. Observe MSBRA.
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/dealing-with-malware-adware-spyware.html>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/dealing-with-malware-adware-spyware.html
<http://www.dslreports.com/forum/cleanup>
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/cleanup
 
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