Computer Help

[ron1863]

My partner bought a new Sony Vaio with 2mg ram and 120gd hdd, which has wireless connection to our internet provider (AOL) and also to her business line at her shop (B.T.).
The problem is that it takes forever to access any internet site, e.g. she orders from online wholesalers and finds it takes ages to access a site, but once accessed finds that she can move about that sites pages fairly quickly. It just takes forever to initially access a site.

Any solutions????

[Mercadante]

Has she got any anti-spyware, anti-virus sorts of things installed, that could be checking sites for known dodginess before allowing her to go there?

[eeyore]

it strikes me that the problem is probably with your broadband provider - its worth checking what the actuall upstream/downstream speed is - its propbably far less than advertised. its quicker once the site has loaded because cookies etc are installed.

also it might be windows defender - which is ms's own anti virus which lives in xp and vista - this is definitely worthdisabling once you have other anti virus etc installed.

[big bill]

I found this happening to me a few months back,I had istalled Norton anti virus in pc and it ran like a sack of spuds took it of and went back to Macafee and speed was back up with no sign of pc lagging

[DavyG]

If you're using a wireless internet connection, have you checked that you have secured your connection?

It's not uncommon to find that someone else is piggybacking onto an unsecured wireless connection and stealing your bandwidth, that could also cause your connection to be slow.

Dave

[geordie1970]

I'd stay clear of Norton guaranteed to slow your pc down I would recomend Sygate personal firewall and Nod 32 anti virus very good programs and low memory usage.

[Paul mabbott]

Wireless can be very slow whoever the provider and it varies with time of day - try using the internet at different times of the day: if it's only sometimes slow then that is the answer. I've experienced this and find that weekday mornings are fine, weekends and evenings get slower and after midnight when the USAmericans switch on is deadly!

AOL was always very slow but I've not used it for many a year. There's something to be said (I've heard) for using European providers because they don't have the load of users that US providers do - to an extent that could also apply to British ones but I've had no problems with Virgin.

Agree that Norton is the least preferred of anti-virus (etc)packages (and probably the most expensive. I use AVG which is okay most of the time. If you have your anti-virus set to scan the whole disc at a regular time of day this will slow down the computer to an extent (whatever the programme) so set it for some time when you have the computer on but are not using it for anything heavy, urgent or important!

Good luck!

Originally Posted by ron1863

My partner bought a new Sony Vaio with 2mg ram and 120gd hdd, which has wireless connection to our internet provider (AOL) and also to her business line at her shop (B.T.).
The problem is that it takes forever to access any internet site, e.g. she orders from online wholesalers and finds it takes ages to access a site, but once accessed finds that she can move about that sites pages fairly quickly. It just takes forever to initially access a site.

Any solutions????

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

Agree that Norton is the least preferred of anti-virus (etc)packages (and probably the most expensive. I use AVG which is okay most of the time. If you have your anti-virus set to scan the whole disc at a regular time of day this will slow down the computer to an extent (whatever the programme) so set it for some time when you have the computer on but are not using it for anything heavy, urgent or important!

Good luck!

i actually find norton 360 to be significantly quicker than macaffee total protection - tho it does depend on what other software you have loaded as you get conflicts etc.

however whatever antiviral you have if you are experiencing issues it is always worth trying another, if nothing else this will eliminate antivirus from the list of potential suspects

[ron1863]

Originally Posted by eeyore

it strikes me that the problem is probably with your broadband provider - its worth checking what the actuall upstream/downstream speed is - its propbably far less than advertised. its quicker once the site has loaded because cookies etc are installed.

also it might be windows defender - which is ms's own anti virus which lives in xp and vista - this is definitely worthdisabling once you have other anti virus etc installed.

Cheers eeyore but I disabled windows defender when BT's internet security pack downloaded. Did a speedcheck - 6.8, which is fine.

[ron1863]

Originally Posted by big bill

I found this happening to me a few months back,I had istalled Norton anti virus in pc and it ran like a sack of spuds took it of and went back to Macafee and speed was back up with no sign of pc lagging

Cheers Bill, when I contacted BT re slow connection they told me to disable Norton as it causes lots of problems. I did this as it was a 60 day trial version. Made little difference.
It doesn't seem to make much difference what spyware etc is on the computer as I have changed them to see if there was any improvement or deterioration.

Thanks Paul (Mabbot), I will try the laptop tomorrow with a ethernet cable connected to the router to see if there is any difference in speed. We have AOL at home and it is very fast but I don't particularly like it's layout. BT is new to me and their support seems fine as they have tried to solve the problem over the phone and are sending an engineer out next week to see what he can do.

Once again everyone, thanks for all the advice and I will try any new possible solutions.

[Brocker]

The problem with a slow internet connection is that it can be many many things. Start with the things that can be adjusted from your pc. can I suggest that you check your download speeds first. You need to check it many times though over a period of three hours. Then go through the same process the next day. Type in 'internet speed checker' in your search engine and use one of the free, independant ones. This will give you an average. If this is ok, use a different virus checker if you currently have Norton. Do not just disable it, uninstall it and all of its components. If you can afford NOD 32 then I would use that. It protects your internet gateway rather than commandeering your whole PC which will make your entire PC work faster. If you need something a little cheaper then 'Avast' is a free virus checker that can be downloaded from the net. Do make sure you have another checker to put on before you uninstall Norton.
Another point is that AOL is also notoriously slow. If you are using AOL software as your search engine and email setup, may I suggest you use something else. Like Norton, it runs by having its tentacles in all aspects of your operating system. This again will sloww everything down.
I guess the other thing is that your wireless router must be of a good quality because its ability to transfer information from line to computer will be slow. Lastly, check your wirelss setup on your laptop is running at its optimum speed. By default, some machines are set to low to middle.

Good Luck

[ron1863]

Originally Posted by Brocker

The problem with a slow internet connection is that it can be many many things. Start with the things that can be adjusted from your pc. can I suggest that you check your download speeds first. You need to check it many times though over a period of three hours. Then go through the same process the next day. Type in 'internet speed checker' in your search engine and use one of the free, independant ones. This will give you an average. If this is ok, use a different virus checker if you currently have Norton. Do not just disable it, uninstall it and all of its components. If you can afford NOD 32 then I would use that. It protects your internet gateway rather than commandeering your whole PC which will make your entire PC work faster. If you need something a little cheaper then 'Avast' is a free virus checker that can be downloaded from the net. Do make sure you have another checker to put on before you uninstall Norton.
Another point is that AOL is also notoriously slow. If you are using AOL software as your search engine and email setup, may I suggest you use something else. Like Norton, it runs by having its tentacles in all aspects of your operating system. This again will sloww everything down.
I guess the other thing is that your wireless router must be of a good quality because its ability to transfer information from line to computer will be slow. Lastly, check your wirelss setup on your laptop is running at its optimum speed. By default, some machines are set to low to middle.

Good Luck

Thanks for the advice, but how do I check that the laptop is running at optimum speed. You will have to excuse my ignorance but I am not computer literate

[Brocker]

It can be a little complicated withoutknowing the make and model of all your hardware. If you do the speed tests first this is the best starting point. If you type in to your search engine 'Internet speed test' and click on the site that says 'UK Broadband Speed Test'. Once in, type in your post code, (and phone number if you wish, this is optional) and it will tell you how far from your exchange you are and what the download speed you should expect. Then follow the instructions for an actual speedtest and this will tell you exactly how fast your download is. Once this is established, if your speed is a lot lower than your area expects then it will be a bandwidth problem from the exchange. If it is around the expected value it is likely to be a software slowdown or a settings issue.
It is easier to deal with the simple issues first. .

[ron1863]

Hi Brocker, I did a speed test and got the following results, which were pretty low.

Speed Down 1627.16 Kbps ( 1.6 Mbps )
Speed Up 363.53 Kbps ( 0.4 Mbps )

Could you please explain how I check that the wirelss setup on the laptop is running at its optimum speed.

Thanks

Ron

[darwin]

I have recently set up a PC and a laptop with Windows Vista, and on both machines (both high spec), Windows Vista takes forever to load completely.

By that-I mean all Hard Disc activity stops, I am talking sometimes 6-10 minutes.

Could it be that you are clicking to go on the Internet before all other activity is finished, that would definately show those symptoms.

Windows Vista only starts to perform half decent with at least 1GB of Ram, the more the better.

Also AOL has now become appalling for speed, since they pushed a lot of users onto the Carphone Warehouse-I am affected by this.

Hope this helps

[darwin]

Just realised your laptop has 2GB of RAM-that is perfect.

I would go for it being a combination of Windows Vista and ISP, we have BT Business Broadband at work and at certain times of the day, the slow speeds are cruel!

[ron1863]

Originally Posted by darwin

Just realised your laptop has 2GB of RAM-that is perfect.

I would go for it being a combination of Windows Vista and ISP, we have BT Business Broadband at work and at certain times of the day, the slow speeds are cruel!

I know what you mean, loading some pages seems to take forever but we have a BT engineer coming out today to check connections etc. Hopefully things will improve.

[Brocker]

Before adjusting any settings on the laptop, did you put in your postcode and get an average for your exchange. This is important as those speeds may all you will be able to get from your exchange.

[ron1863]

Thanks for all the support and advice but I only just noticed that my partner had included BTs Internet security pack with the Broadband package. I think that this has been causing some conflictions with windows security, which was also running making the machine process everything very slowly. I turned off windows security (Bt's advice) and it is now loading pages much faster.
The BT engineer, who I thought was calling today (bank holiday) is in fact visiting tomorrow, so I will check the computer settings with him.

Once again, many thanks everyone for the advice