Vista very slow downloading files

  • Thread starter Carol & Ray Reilly
  • Start date
C

Carol & Ray Reilly

I just purchased a Dell 546 AMD Phenom X4 (2.3 GHz 2MB) with 4GB RAM.
The Operating is Vista Home Premium. My
internet server is Verizon FIOS running at 10 MB/S. I noticed that my
download speed is much, much slower than my old computer which was a
Dimension 8400 Pentium 4 630 (3 GHz) with 1 GB RAM. I first contacted
Verizon and they uploaded software to measure download speed. It showed
that I was downloading at close to the rated 10 MB/S. I also loaded
Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) to speed up downloads but files still are
only being received about 100-200 KB/S. I tried contacting Dell Tech
Support but they seemed to have no idea and blamed it on software in the
computer. Other than the Vista Operating System and software preloaded by
Dell. I have the same software that was on my older XP which I never
measured but downloaded visibly faster. Could this slowdown be caused by
Vista? If so, any suggestions on how I can improve it? Thanks in advance
for your help and advice.
 
A

Alias

Carol said:
I just purchased a Dell 546 AMD Phenom X4 (2.3 GHz 2MB) with 4GB RAM.
The Operating is Vista Home Premium. My internet server is Verizon FIOS
running at 10 MB/S. I noticed that my download speed is much, much
slower than my old computer which was a Dimension 8400 Pentium 4 630 (3
GHz) with 1 GB RAM. I first contacted Verizon and they uploaded
software to measure download speed. It showed that I was downloading at
close to the rated 10 MB/S. I also loaded Download Accelerator Plus
(DAP) to speed up downloads but files still are only being received
about 100-200 KB/S. I tried contacting Dell Tech Support but they
seemed to have no idea and blamed it on software in the computer. Other
than the Vista Operating System and software preloaded by Dell. I have
the same software that was on my older XP which I never measured but
downloaded visibly faster. Could this slowdown be caused by Vista? If
so, any suggestions on how I can improve it? Thanks in advance for your
help and advice.

Anti virus up to date? Run it with the boot option if it has it. If not,
run it in Safe Mode. Also download and run in safe mode:

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

http://www.superantispyware.com/download.html

Test your Internet speed here:

http://www.speedtest.net/

Alias
 
F

FredW

Get TuneUp Utilities 2009 [ http://www.tune-up.com/download/ ]
You will get a 30day free trial. After these 30 days the changes will still
remain.

It has cool tools to speed up your system AND internet settings.
Let me know how it goes.

Bad advice!
"Speeding up" your system and "Internet settings" is an urban legend!

Registry Cleaners and System Tweaking Tools
http://miekiemoes.blogspot.com/2008/02/registry-cleaners-and-system-tweaking_13.html
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000643.html

Tune-up "utilities" *can* (and probably will) harm your Windows!
Do you believe all and everything in commercials for software?
 
D

DarkNight

I tried and tested the software with a team of experts. It actually works
you know....
BUT yes, those utilities you`ve mentioned can also help.

FredW said:
Get TuneUp Utilities 2009 [ http://www.tune-up.com/download/ ]
You will get a 30day free trial. After these 30 days the changes will
still
remain.

It has cool tools to speed up your system AND internet settings.
Let me know how it goes.

Bad advice!
"Speeding up" your system and "Internet settings" is an urban legend!

Registry Cleaners and System Tweaking Tools
http://miekiemoes.blogspot.com/2008/02/registry-cleaners-and-system-tweaking_13.html
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000643.html

Tune-up "utilities" *can* (and probably will) harm your Windows!
Do you believe all and everything in commercials for software?
 
D

DarkNight

INFACT, tuneUp consists of all those utilities and more.

Carol & Ray Reilly, just try the software. I am using it for almost a year
now, with NO breakdowns.

DarkNight said:
I tried and tested the software with a team of experts. It actually works
you know....
BUT yes, those utilities you`ve mentioned can also help.

FredW said:
Get TuneUp Utilities 2009 [ http://www.tune-up.com/download/ ]
You will get a 30day free trial. After these 30 days the changes will
still
remain.

It has cool tools to speed up your system AND internet settings.
Let me know how it goes.

Bad advice!
"Speeding up" your system and "Internet settings" is an urban legend!

Registry Cleaners and System Tweaking Tools
http://miekiemoes.blogspot.com/2008/02/registry-cleaners-and-system-tweaking_13.html
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000643.html

Tune-up "utilities" *can* (and probably will) harm your Windows!
Do you believe all and everything in commercials for software?
 
F

FredW

FredW said:
Get TuneUp Utilities 2009 [ http://www.tune-up.com/download/ ]
You will get a 30day free trial. After these 30 days the changes will
still
remain.

It has cool tools to speed up your system AND internet settings.
Let me know how it goes.

Bad advice!
"Speeding up" your system and "Internet settings" is an urban legend!

Registry Cleaners and System Tweaking Tools
http://miekiemoes.blogspot.com/2008/02/registry-cleaners-and-system-tweaking_13.html
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000643.html

Tune-up "utilities" *can* (and probably will) harm your Windows!
Do you believe all and everything in commercials for software?
I tried and tested the software with a team of experts. It actually works
you know....

What "team of experts"???
There is no proven record "it" "works".
There has never been any proven record that "tune-up utilities" work.
At the best they do no harm.

BUT yes, those utilities you`ve mentioned can also help.

I did not mention any utiltities.
What are you talking about?
 
F

FredW

DarkNight said:
FredW said:
On Thu, 6 Aug 2009 19:11:23 +0200, "DarkNight" <n/a> wrote:

Get TuneUp Utilities 2009 [ http://www.tune-up.com/download/ ]
You will get a 30day free trial. After these 30 days the changes will
still
remain.

It has cool tools to speed up your system AND internet settings.
Let me know how it goes.

Bad advice!
"Speeding up" your system and "Internet settings" is an urban legend!

Registry Cleaners and System Tweaking Tools
http://miekiemoes.blogspot.com/2008/02/registry-cleaners-and-system-tweaking_13.html
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000643.html

Tune-up "utilities" *can* (and probably will) harm your Windows!
Do you believe all and everything in commercials for software?
I tried and tested the software with a team of experts. It actually works
you know....
BUT yes, those utilities you`ve mentioned can also help.
INFACT, tuneUp consists of all those utilities and more.

Which utilities?

Carol & Ray Reilly, just try the software. I am using it for almost a year
now, with NO breakdowns.

There is no evidence to be found that any of those "tune up utilities"
work, why would that be?
If register cleaners and alike would work at all, it would be known by
now, don't you think so?
A lot of software companies make a lot of noise to tell how good there
"utilities" are, just to boost their sales, however no company can show
any substantiated and proven figures that their software really makes a
difference.

Could you register any speed-up of your system?
Have you tested and used a stopwatch before and after using "cool"
tools?
How did these "cool" tools improve your Internet settings?

They are all snake-oil.
http://www.whatthetech.com/2007/11/25/do-i-need-a-registry-cleaner/
 
E

Eric

Carol & Ray Reilly said:
I just purchased a Dell 546 AMD Phenom X4 (2.3 GHz 2MB) with 4GB RAM. The
Operating is Vista Home Premium. My internet server is Verizon FIOS
running at 10 MB/S. I noticed that my download speed is much, much slower
than my old computer which was a Dimension 8400 Pentium 4 630 (3 GHz) with
1 GB RAM. I first contacted Verizon and they uploaded software to measure
download speed. It showed that I was downloading at close to the rated 10
MB/S. I also loaded Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) to speed up downloads
but files still are only being received about 100-200 KB/S. I tried
contacting Dell Tech Support but they seemed to have no idea and blamed it
on software in the computer. Other than the Vista Operating System and
software preloaded by Dell. I have the same software that was on my older
XP which I never measured but downloaded visibly faster. Could this
slowdown be caused by Vista? If so, any suggestions on how I can improve
it? Thanks in advance for your help and advice.

I have a similar system. My downloads usually say they're going about 700
kb/s. If I run the test at www.speedtest.net it gets up to 16+ mb/s. I
don't know where exactly the files are being transferred from. I assume the
bottleneck is on the other end.
 
C

Carol & Ray Reilly

Thanks for all your responses and good suggestions. Since I have a brand
new computer with a practically empty hard drive I have to question a
utility software helping much. I have Norton Internet Security and it says
my computer is clean. I did notice something funny. When I first fired up
the computer it automatically when to the Microsoft site for updates. One
of them was to download and apply IE8. I noticed that I now have two IE
buttons under ""All Programs" in the Start menu. One of the shortcuts says
"Internet Explorer" and points to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet
Explorer\iexplore.exe" (which I assume is the 32-bit version of IE). The
other shortcut says "Internet Explorer 64-bit" and is stored in "C:\Program
Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" I can't tell which path the Icons on
the Dock point to but when I started both "IE" and "IE 64-bit" from "All
Programs" they both opened the same (changed) home page. What's up with
this? By the way, all the programs I loaded when into Program Files
(x86). In any event, if I can't improve the speed within Vista or IE I'll
wait until Windows 7 comes out and check the speed then.
 
B

Bill Daggett

Carol & Ray Reilly said:
Thanks for all your responses and good suggestions. Since I have a brand
new computer with a practically empty hard drive I have to question a
utility software helping much. I have Norton Internet Security and it says
my computer is clean. I did notice something funny. When I first fired up
the computer it automatically when to the Microsoft site for updates. One
of them was to download and apply IE8. I noticed that I now have two IE
buttons under ""All Programs" in the Start menu. One of the shortcuts says
"Internet Explorer" and points to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet
Explorer\iexplore.exe" (which I assume is the 32-bit version of IE). The
other shortcut says "Internet Explorer 64-bit" and is stored in "C:\Program
Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" I can't tell which path the Icons on
the Dock point to but when I started both "IE" and "IE 64-bit" from "All
Programs" they both opened the same (changed) home page. What's up with
this? By the way, all the programs I loaded when into Program Files
(x86). In any event, if I can't improve the speed within Vista or IE I'll
wait until Windows 7 comes out and check the speed then.

It's not the operating system version.

Speedtests are more accurate than whatever it is you're using and
Verizon says you're OK.

Have you tested your speed anywhere else?

http://www.speedtest.net/

http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/
 
B

+Bob+

I just purchased a Dell 546 AMD Phenom X4 (2.3 GHz 2MB) with 4GB RAM.
The Operating is Vista Home Premium. My
internet server is Verizon FIOS running at 10 MB/S. I noticed that my
download speed is much, much slower than my old computer which was a
Dimension 8400 Pentium 4 630 (3 GHz) with 1 GB RAM. I first contacted
Verizon and they uploaded software to measure download speed. It showed
that I was downloading at close to the rated 10 MB/S. I also loaded
Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) to speed up downloads but files still are
only being received about 100-200 KB/S. I tried contacting Dell Tech
Support but they seemed to have no idea and blamed it on software in the
computer. Other than the Vista Operating System and software preloaded by
Dell. I have the same software that was on my older XP which I never
measured but downloaded visibly faster. Could this slowdown be caused by
Vista? If so, any suggestions on how I can improve it? Thanks in advance
for your help and advice.

First, Vista is slower in network and disk I/O. So, some slowdown is
not unexpected. If you don't have SP2, try an upgrade, it might help.

Have you set the MTU on the system? That may help. If you are
unfamiliar, try downloading "Dr. TCP". It will allow you to set the
MMTU with little knowledge.

Have you tried another computer through the same Internet Connection
recently (the XP machine?) to verify that the connection really works
at that speed? Verizon's ActionWreck routers are known for failing. It
could be a new router problem (yes, even with the connection speed
testing OK).

Also, try running a cable to the router to determine if it's a
wireless issue. Be aware that Vista does not like to change connection
types on the fly - you will likely need to disable the wireless card
in Device Manager then enable the wired connection. Do a reboot before
yo do any testing to make sure the test is clean.
 
B

+Bob+

Thanks for all your responses and good suggestions. Since I have a brand
new computer with a practically empty hard drive I have to question a
utility software helping much. I have Norton Internet Security and it says
my computer is clean. I did notice something funny. When I first fired up
the computer it automatically when to the Microsoft site for updates. One
of them was to download and apply IE8. I noticed that I now have two IE
buttons under ""All Programs" in the Start menu. One of the shortcuts says
"Internet Explorer" and points to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet
Explorer\iexplore.exe" (which I assume is the 32-bit version of IE). The
other shortcut says "Internet Explorer 64-bit" and is stored in "C:\Program
Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" I can't tell which path the Icons on
the Dock point to but when I started both "IE" and "IE 64-bit" from "All
Programs" they both opened the same (changed) home page. What's up with
this? By the way, all the programs I loaded when into Program Files
(x86). In any event, if I can't improve the speed within Vista or IE I'll
wait until Windows 7 comes out and check the speed then.

I'd also remove Norton and re-test. It's a known pig in some
configurations... see if that's your issue. You will need to use the
Norton Removal Tool. Also, make sure you aren't running two firewalls
(Norton & Windows... moot if you remove it).
 
C

Carol & Ray Reilly

The only other speed check is the dialog box you see when downloading files
that list the current file download speed.
 
B

+Bob+

The only other speed check is the dialog box you see when downloading files
that list the current file download speed.

Have you tried any of the suggestions or tests I posted?
 

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