Slow Internet
 

I've seen a few clever computer types around here so thought I'd give it a go!

Looking for any suggestions as to why my home internet access is so poor....
Problem started a couple of months back and seems to affect the majority of sites I access at home... all times of the day.
Most (that's 99.9%) websites fail to load completely, usually the graphics content remain as place holders, trying a refresh usually results in a 'site unavailable' type message.
Odd because Google is fine, and Ebay usually loads... but just about everything else stalls.
File downloads/updates etc and email downloads are fine. So
Have tried different browsers with no sucess....

Am using WinXP, with all the updates, plenty of HD space, defragged, Zonealarm, and a BB Belkin modem/router. ISP is Orange.

I'm not a complete PC dunce, and I think I've tried the obvious stuff, but this one has me stumped!
Any ideas?

RR

This might not be the most helpful post, but I assume you're talking about broadband.

It's not that uncommon for ISPs to have routing issues, but for you to be unable to get to 99.9% of websites is rediculous. If I were you, I'd call their Customer Services (even at 50p/min) & chant the mantra of "If this isn't fixed, I will be cancelling my contract. I'll also be speaking to my solicitor before I do because I consider that since I can't access websites, I'm paying for a service I'm not getting!"

Obviously play it nice at first, but if they think there's a chance of you cancelling & not paying the early cancellation fees (and possibly even getting your previously spent money back), they usually start getting pretty helpful very quickly.

At the end of the day, short of another Orange customer having a similar issue, only Orange will be able to provide detailed help. My opinion however, is that there's some issue with the DNS settings for Orange (maybe on your end, maybe not). Failing that, it'll be some software somewhere filtering HTTP requests (again, either your's or Oranges), or the fact that you've exceeded the allowed monthly usage, and they've restricted you, but the kind of restriction you're talking about is clearly out of order.

Goto: http://adslguide.org.uk/tools/speedtest.asp

Check if your speed is good or not. Its possable you have some malware on your system. Get some progs like Spybot Search & Destroy and also Lavasoft AdWare.

My internet went really slow and like you most pages would not load.... found I had spyware all over my harddrive sucking the life out of the internet connection.

I got myself EWIDO ANTI-SPYWARE and it removed around 480 threats on the first run.... internet was super fast after that.

Agree with TSM. The only time I have had serious impossible to find problems was when I had a nasty little rootkit hiding on my PC, spybot S&D and adaware are part of my standard install whenever I build someone a system or asked to look at their troublesome puter.

I suppose the only issue is one day, there will be more protection running on the PC than actual useful applications.

one piece of advice is get rid of any stupid windows based firewalls and get a proper hardware firewall.

Could be your ISP bottlenecking the connections. Could be congestion at the exchange.

To check the congestion at exchange go here: http://www.names.co.uk/vp_congestion_checker.html

For a speedtest go here:
http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/

or for a true speedtest change your login on your router to:

username: speedtest@speedtest_domain
password: testing

then visit http://speedtester.bt.com, and this will allow a speedtest to be done, bypassing the ISP. Lets you know if it's an exchange problem, or an ISP problem.

(ensure that DHCP is turned on so sthat you get BT DNS servers)

mine was slow last nite but its fine now.

Well... I tried everything, and thanks for all the suggestions, but no sucesss!
Internet's still less than crawling.
Soooo... I've just kicked an old PC back into life from a pile of bits and a fresh XP install and internet's just flying along, so it looks like a big ol' reinstall sometime :roll:
A job for winter or rainy BH :wink:

RR