Poor Internet Access On One Machine Only

[developer]

At home we have a number of PC's running on a single SKY broadband connection, including a wireless laptop, however, one of them is particularly slow and keeps buffering.

It is an old XP spec desktop machine with only 2Gb ram, but even though task manager says the processor is only at about 20% when everything but a web page is closed down, it's still incredibly slow.

It and another PC are using homeplugs, but the other one accesses the web just fine.

Any ideas please?

Download speed 5.76 and upload 0.52, which I though was poor, except the laptop just tested download 2.58 and upload 0.58, and it works just fine, through wireless.

 

[davidjpowell]

Plug laptop into homeplug, switch off wireless and test.

That way you've just narrowed it down to the PC, or not the PC.

 

[c63chris]

Was it always like this or has it suddenly gone slow. if the latter check for viruses. Happened to my daughters laptop and it was a virus, removed it with malwarebytes and it was fine.

 

[Spinal]

Could be a plethora of things.

Hard drive failing
Malware
RAM used by other processes
RAM failing
Wireless card
etc.

Eliminate them one by one

 

[spinaltap]

When I first bought my Devolo homeplugs, I used a laptop to run speedtest.net on the power outlets throughout the house.

I discovered that only a few such power outlets delivered the optimum down/upstream speed.

 

[developer]

Quick update time.

I ran Malwarebytes and it found 358 problems - all PUP in nature.

I also uninstalled some "freeware" games programmes that the previous owner if the machine had used - it seems quicker now.