Page downloads take 15 seconds using Broadband

I bought a laptop fairly recently.

I'm using Mozilla Firefox instead of Internet Explorer.

I had McAfee Security running as a temporary measure which has now expired. I downloaded AVG and up until yesterday the download speed was very fast but yesterday started running very slowly. I thought I might not have enough security and/or a virus on the laptop and after reading through the sticky I have run through the steps for 'How to clean an infected pc' (nothing much showed up on any scans). I still have the problem of very slow downloads though and was wondering would it have something to do with McAfee expiring?

The speed on the broadband shows between 48-54Mbps?

I'm not clued up regarding computers and unless this is fairly easily resolved would anyone know of/recommend somewhere I could take the laptop to have it fixed as its very frustrating to use when its taking so long to download?

(Its a Dell Inspiron 6400 Windows XP)

Thank you.

PM1234 said:

The speed on the broadband shows between 48-54Mbps?

Click to expand...

Where is this displayed? I very much doubt that you have 50Mbps broadband or even one tenth of that speed!

Have you tried Firefox or another alternative to IE to see if the problem persists or may be IE specific?

Hi,

I'm using Firefox (spelling error on original post - I'll correct this)

Re the speed I'm looking at the internet connection icon (bottom left hand corner) which says although I could be misinterpreting it?

Speed 54.0Mbps
Signal Excellent
Status Connected
IP address ----

54Mbps is the speed that you're getting (presumably over wireless) to the router but not the speed that you're getting across the internet. The latter can be gauged using www.irishisptest.com.

You're right. The speed on the test link you posted shows 3.44Mbps and upload 272Kbps.

Its speed has increased since I originally posted but I'm a bit worried that when I log on and back on, it will revert to the original problem.

In case this happens would anyone know what could have caused this or if there is somewhere I can take it to get it checked out?

Thanks

Maybe there was a higher contention ratio earlier that dragged the speed down? What sort of broadband link are you on? I presume it's 4Mbps or more but what is the contention ratio as that will determine what it could drop to if demand is high.

Dont forget that delay may be caused by DNS lookup. Try using Ping command in run
e.g. ping www.askaboutmoney.com
compare with
ping 82.195.144.147 (actual IP address)
values should be fractions of a second in both cases. (23ms in my case)
A delay in www.askaboutmoney.com compared to 82.195.144.147 points to DNS lookup delay.
DNS adresses can be manually looked up at [broken link removed] and the actual ip address of your favourite webpages can be got.
Also its possible to save favorite as IP address rather than www.------- to increase speed.
This info is only useful if delay is in getting to website. Its important to distinguish between this delay & download delay.

If you're using an Intel PRO wireless card, it could be that PSP functionality on your wireless router isn't working properly.

See this note for details:
http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/sb/cs-006205.htm

You can test by changing the Power Management setting on your wireless card to Highest and see if it makes a difference.

If this is the problem, contact the wireless router manufacturer for a firmware upgrade for your router.