Internet extremely slow

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MartynK

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Martyn
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I could do with some help!

We have a laptop and a desktop wirelessly connected to a BT Hub 3. BT says we should get up to 8 mps, and we're only about 250m from the exchange, but it's a rural area and broadband isn't great. We were getting about 2.4 mps until a week ago, but this seems to have dropped to around 1.5 mps now.

The problem is that the laptop seems to have an intermittent problem when it takes anything up to a couple of minutes to load a web page, then it'll revert to a, sort of, reasonable speed, and drop again without any warning. It's about 1m from the hub. The desktop is in another room and doesn't seem to be effected the same way which indiates a problem with the laptop.

I'm running W7 64 bit with 4 MB RAM, and use Microsoft Security Essentials. The browser is Firefox 22. I've run Malware virus scans as a double check, cleared the cookies, and rebooted the router but none of this seems to make any difference. I'm reasonably comfortable with computers, but the technical stuff is largely beyond me!

I'm used to pretty slow internet, but this is becoming frustrating. Can anyone offer advice? Thanks.
 
Have you tried connection the laptop to the hub via ethernet to rule out a hardware issue on the laptop?
 
Most likely poor wireless on the laptop. I'd fix the wireless channel to start off with after checking what channel neighbours are on.
 
srichards said:
Most likely poor wireless on the laptop. I'd fix the wireless channel to start off with after checking what channel neighbours are on.
Click to expand...

Hmm, you've got me now. I think only two of our neighbours have the internet, and I doubt if they'll have any more idea what channel they're on than I do! Could you explain this in a bit more detail?
 
Although the problem seems to be with the laptop I agree about trying it wired first. This would allow you to find out what speed you are getting.

Use the BT speed checker at different times of the day and night and build up list of a number of tests. It could be useful if you need to contact BT about slow speed to your home.

I have not used this myself but have heard it mentioned on a number of forums and seems to be liked -

http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/

Dave
 
MartynK said:
Hmm, you've got me now. I think only two of our neighbours have the internet, and I doubt if they'll have any more idea what channel they're on than I do! Could you explain this in a bit more detail?
Click to expand...
Wifi works on channels. Download InSSIDer: http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/ and run it. You should see what channels you are using and your neighbours are using. If they overlap, you will be getting interference.

If you don't know much about wireless, prepare yourself to become very familiar with both wifi setup on the router and figuring out what speed the router thinks it is connected at....
 
Thanks everyone. I connected the laptop using an ethernet cable and it seems a little better, but the problem is still there. As I said, it's intermittent. Some pages load fast, and others don't, across several web sites. I can't find a pattern here and I'll have to experiment with the suggestions you've all made. That's going to take me a while, so I'll probably be back tomorrow with an update.

I'm not very familiar with the intricacies of wifi - all my wifi networks have run pretty flawlessly in the past - but I'll follow the links and do some reading. Hopefully I'll be able to figure it out. There is a good local computer guy, but he's expensive and I don't like paying people to do things I'd rather learn how to do for myself!
 
Have you or someone in your household added a phone recently, without using a filter?
For best connectivity, I would recommend connecting your ADSL wireless router to the MASTER SOCKET, with any extension telephone wiring connected via a filter.
 
We only have one landline phone, running off the master socket. The bedroom extension is wireless.
 
Intenet has been dropping off the radar a few times since my last post. It's intermittent and seems to be a BT issue. I'm still trying to test things. Thanks.
 
This has taken a while, but I followed your suggestions and finally got my broadband speed back to around 2.5 mps. Reformatted the laptop and only installed the software I actually need - not all the other stuff that's built up on it over the last few years - and everything is running a lot cleaner and faster now.

Thanks again.
 
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