computer running really slow

[Lesley Jones]

Can anyone offer some advise please.

For the last couple of weeks we have been having trouble with out internet connection through both my computer and my daughters laptop.

You get connected and gradually over a period of about twenty minutes everthing gets slower and slower until evenutally pages will not load or you get a time out message. If you go through the unplugging and replugging regime then you will get connected again for a further twenty minutes or so. Getting really frustated with it. Have spoken to Virgin thinking that perhaps our modem was faulty or 'past its sellby date' but seem to spend ages on the telephone and get nowhere.

Any advise would be appreciated, bearing in mind that I am not very technically minded.

Thanks.

 

[marsaday]

i have the same problem. they told me to switch off the power and this worked, but the connection is still slow.

i do a speed test on the net and it always comes back around the 2mb mark so the connection seems fine.

could i have a virus slowing the system down. i have avg and pc tools spyware doctor. whenever this is run it always brings up tracker cookies which are minor infections.

anyone any ideas how to make it go faster?

 

[bobRRS]

Two possible causes come to mind:

1) ISP playing up
2) Virus/trojan infection sucking up the bandwidth

For case 1 you can take some "tracert" readings and email them to the ISP to look at, simply open a cmd window (type cmd into the Start->Run box), then type: tracert www.virginmedia.com

This will return a lot of numbers, they are essentially response times to each of the hops the connection has to go through from you to the destination. Typically, you should be seeing numbers like 10ms or 20 ms if your ADSL is very good. If only some of the hops are in the hundreds of ms or * (* denotes a timeout) then it is likely the problem is with the ISP only. If all the hops look bad, then the problem could be local or ISP!

If it looks bad, take a screenshot and email it to the ISP.

For case 2, you cant rely 100% on firewall or anti-virus software - they can ALL be bypassed and quietly modified by a fair percentage of the sophisticated trojans and viruses out there, a hardware firewall is the better way to go (such as the one that comes built in to your ADSL router).

A simple check to see if you have been infected by trojans:

- Reboot computer (dont use any applications on restarting)
- Open a cmd window
- Type: netstat -a

This will list all the ESTABLISHED connections your computer is making to the internet, on a fresh restart you may see one or two of the established connections where some applications automatically try to get updates etc But if you see dozens or hundreds of ESTABLISHED connections, you have been heavily infected (ignore any connections going to localhost).

Type the netstat command every 5 minutes and see if the connections increase in number.

 

[marsaday]

i typed in netstat and 3 connections came up. it wouldn't have netstat-a

is this correct?

 

[dave.m]

Instructions for, and understanding results of Traceroutes

http://www.kitz.co.uk/tute/tracert.htm

 

[Igorian]

i typed in netstat and 3 connections came up. it wouldn't have netstat-a

is this correct?

You need a space between netstat and -a

 

[Lesley Jones]

Thanks for the replies. did the tracert thing and got ms ranging from 1 to 24 in 9 hops ? assume this is good. I have however, just had to unplug and replug as initially I had no internet connection- computer is therefore responding well at the moment but I expect this only to last for about twenty mins.

 

[Lesley Jones]

Just in case anyone is interested - our internet problems seem to have been sorted out.

I noticed that the modem was getting a bit warm where it is so I lifted it off the floor on two small pieces of timber so that there was more airflow - seems to have sorted the problem! I dont know why this would suddenly be causing a problem now as the modem has been in the same place for the last couple of years. Just pleased that it is ok now.

 

[dave.m]

Global Warming.

 

[mattylad]

Dust inside the modem causing airflow to be restricted & the whole unit to overheat.

Very common when they are on the floor.

It may help to disconnect it & blow the dust out.

 

[PaulRodg]

Dust inside the modem causing airflow to be restricted & the whole unit to overheat.

Yep, that would be my guess too, if you can get rid of the dust in there I'd imagine that your problem will clear up