Fast Internet Extremely Slow Browsing

GTx2015 · Sep 30, 2015

Pages take minutes to load and often time out.
Have a well performing machine (I7 cpu, 16g ram, all apps respond snappy fast. Win7 premium
Internet download speed tested at 87mbps. Upload about 12mbps. have another old WinXP machine on same network browses fine, it's just this machine. Actual downloads and videos are fast if I can get them started.

have disabled all plugins, I use ghostery for trackers, tried tuning it off. Use Kaspersky 2015 (Also runs on older xp machine) tried turning off firewall, web virus and a few other features with no effect. have changed DNS servers, no effect. Using hard wired connection (tried wireless, no effect). Everything on this machine runs fast except the browsers. using Firefox V41, but have the same problem in recent version of Chrome on this machine

I ran Spybot, and for about a day it seemed to be ok, then went back to slow browsing.

Mohsen_mzh · Sep 30, 2015

try ping an address in cmd(not ip) with a -t command : ping google.com -t
see if delays are fine.
and make sure you haven't set any proxy servers in browsers. specially in IE.

GTx2015 · Sep 30, 2015

google ' dns ping is fine (18ms).

DeadlyDays · Sep 30, 2015

Check to see if the browser is setup to use a proxy. It shouldn't be using a proxy.

GTx2015 · Sep 30, 2015

DeadlyDays :

No proxy set.

Not sure if I'm chasing a red hearing, but the status bar often displays "Looking up ..." or "Waiting for ..." when the delay happens. The first suggests a DNS delay. the second is the initial request to site.

One of my actions that tends to prompt this is when I try to open multiple tabs. I often do a google search, then use Control-R Click to open 2 or 3 sites in separate tabs. Then it gets really bad and all three fail to load and I usually get the "Server not found" error. It's like DNS cannot handle multiple requests.

It's not limited to this scenario. The problem occurs frequently if i just click on a link, but not every time. However, If I select multiple links, I can pretty much count on it happening to most of the tabs

GTx2015 · Sep 30, 2015

Additional info:
I have a WinXp box on the same router also running FF 41 and kaspersky and it does not have this problem, so the issue lies with something in my Win7 box, not the network.

I've changed the cat 5 cable and the port on the router for the Win7 box just in case it was a bad cable or port. It had no effect. I also tried wireless on the win 7 box to see if it was the network interface on the box. Had no effect.

GTx2015 · Sep 30, 2015

The problem primarily affects the initial connection (either to dns or a site). Once connected, it load ok most of the time (occasionally loads slow or only a partial page). But 80% of the time, once connected it loads fine.

Speed tests show 87mbps. large downloads stream fine (once connected).

DeadlyDays · Sep 30, 2015

try throwing IP addresses of major websites into the url bar and see how long it takes. Maybe bad name resolution times? you might want to set your DNS servers manually to a public DNS, or to a different DNS server that your ISP provides.

I've had charters DNS server have issues, and google DNS was slow when I used it.

GTx2015 · Sep 30, 2015

I'm opening links in 6 tabs in rapid succession to stress it and see if IP address responds differently than url.

At the moment I'm having a hard time reproducing it consistently. About half the time they are working, and loading blazing fast (as they should) and half the time they are not. I can't tell if IP or url has an affect.

What I changed:
I go this box (Alienware M18 laptop) used with OS issues. I restored from the Dell OS disk and Driver disk. One of the issues I ran into was the driver disk has drivers for all the possible options that could have come with this model. So, for example, there are 6 Wireless drivers depending on which hardware came with this box. problem is I don't have a utility to tell me what it has (and no the dell Service tag does not identify the specific options either). So for the wifi drivers, I had to guess until I found one that worked.

I have since disable the wireless interface and fortunately there was only one ethernet interface driver, so I don't suspect that.

What may be contributing is I did not install all the drivers. I left a few "non essentials" out. I did not install any bluetooth drivers because I don't use bluetooth, but my device manager showed 2 blutooth devices, one of them being a "Personal Area Network" .

So I disabled both bluetooth devices, and the frequency of the problem seems much reduced. Not gone, but much less often. Unless it's coincidence and the problem is intermittent. So it should be obvious soon if it continues.

Device manager also shows Errors for PCI simple communications Controller, SM Bus Controller, USB controller, and two unknown devices. (I don't currently notice any other issues than my browsing problem)

I've avoided loading all the drivers because the driver CD has multiple chipset drivers and I don't know which I need.

What I'd really like is a tool to identify what is in this box so I know which drivers to load.

GTx2015 · Sep 30, 2015

DeadlyDays:
I have changed DNS servers, both on the Win 7 box (a couple of times) and on my router. It has no effect. My WinXp box is still using the ISP provided DNS and has no problem. The win 7 box was using the ISP provided DNS when this started.

So while it looks lot like a dns resolution issue, it doesn't quite make sense.

DeadlyDays · Sep 30, 2015

You may be able to just take the bottom panels off the laptop and see some of the chips so you can identify proper drivers for them. If you have to you could also take it completely apart to identify all the chips on it. They should either have a sticker on them, or have model/manufacturer printed on them.

There are probably videos on youtube showing you how to safely take them apart. Typically you take all the screws off the bottom, then pop the panel off between the keyboard and the monitor, and then unscrew keyboard, carefully slide out the connectors under the keyboard, and then just unscrew things and disconnect them.

I guess It could be driver issues

GTx2015 · Sep 30, 2015

I have to say: I've been on PC's since before windows (any one remember how big an improvement DOS 3 was? ha ha )
So I've been through every iteration of windows including server versions, paid my dues in network and desktop support jobs before moving up, and frankly I'm getting pretty tired of Windows crap.

Every one else in my house has switched to Mac, so while I currently have 3 windows machines, there are 5 mac machines in the house. Guess who has all the tech issues? We have not had a single mac issue in 2 years. (heck they even warrantied a repair on a 4 year old machine recently).

Phones are mixed android/iphone. Guess which phones run like crap?

Frankly I don't want to work on my home boxes. I just want the damn things to work when I need them. I'm about ready to dump everything and just go Mac. aaarg

DeadlyDays · Sep 30, 2015

I wouldn't blame windows for your issues, because it is unlikely the problem. If you didn't know what drivers to use on an apple laptop you'd be having similar problems, though of course there are fewer things that support macOS so I guess you could say that simplifies things in what I consider a bad way.

If you don't care about internetworking between apple devices and non-apple devices, don't care about products that don't support Mac, and are fine pay large price premiums, then Apple devices may be easier for you. But you'd get the same quality if you spent as much on premium windows products from a good manufacturer with typically higher quality hardware components due to lower markup prices.

Apple just doesn't offer as many ultra low budget products and doesn't have to support as many products/hardware as windows.

GTx2015 · Sep 30, 2015

I'd rather not have to take it apart. Is there a software tool that will identify chips/components?

GTx2015 · Oct 1, 2015

I ran Speccy and loaded chipset drivers (no improvement)
I'm starting to wonder if I have a problem in my TcpIp stack hmmmm

I'm not sure how to determine that. I've looked at the error logs nd don't see any relevant items.
Is there a way to date those through Microsoft? I don't think regular MS update will identify that unless there is version upgrade or something

DeadlyDays · Oct 1, 2015

Clear the cache between attempts, it may be loading the page quickly afterwards because it is reusing cached page data. So loading small bits of data works fine, loading the entire page takes a long time. Implies there is an issue loading entire pages for reason.

Have you tried internet explorer

You said after running spybot it ran successfully for a day? And you said you reinstalled the operating system?
This is a Alienware M18 laptop?

Maybe throw Ubuntu onto a usb drive and boot from it and see if the network works there fine. Fairly quick thing to do.

I have to suspect bad drivers, or a corrupted Windows install disk/image/etc that you are using.

Then again, maybe it is a hardware issue, if Linux generic drives get the wireless working then you will know.

GTx2015 · Oct 2, 2015

The wireless works. I just have it disabled at the moment.

When hard cable was fast (after spybot) wireless was fast also. Now both are slow.

When I quickly load multi pages to test, I always use a fresh google search so no pages are cached.

I ran speccy n drivers look ok. Ran windows update l. None of it helps

I killed several Kaspersky proccesses, n it ran fast for a while. Now it's slow again n none if those processes are loaded.
It just seems to stop periodically n I'll have blazing fast loads, them it gets slow again

Doesn't seem like hardware issue.

DeadlyDays · Oct 2, 2015

what does task manager show processor/ram usage while running slow/fast
I am going to recommend something silly, change power options to max performance and turn off all power saving settings.

I may be crazy, but would be amusing if that is the problem. maybe your system is just slow, or is slowing down because it is a laptop overheating/power saving. old laptops tend to have blocked air exhausts from dust, looks like a lint filter in a laundry drying machine after awhile.

Also check CPU clock rates, because it may be downclocking.

GTx2015 · Oct 3, 2015

I already have power set to best performance (all the Aero crap turned off) and I leave it plugged in most of the time. I have the machine raised up so there is ventilation underneath. These are all things I do normally.

The box responds very well even when the browser is not. I can switch to another app and it's snappy fast. I'm actually quite impressed with the box overall. I can transfer gig files on/off the local drive while running several apps and playing a video and it responds very well. I got it 2nd hand and haven't investigated the motherboard, but i suspect it has some nice dma controllers to handle multiple processes at the same time, and the Quad core i7 is a nice cpu. So I don't think system performance is the cause.

It acts like some kind of packet filter hanging up connections. I don't have a network tool to get a look at what's happening, but I'm beginning to suspect Kaspersky.

The new Kaspersky has all sort of "Features" to protect against web threats. And here's where it get's frustrating. I've killed various Kaspersky processes (with task mgr) and seen immediate improvement. But it doesn't last. The kaspersky process did not reappear in Tm, so I can't quite tell if that actually helped, or was just the intermitant nature of the problem. It does clear up from time to time for short periods for no apparent reson and then returns.

So my next move is I've ordered an older version of Bitdefender (2013). It's prior to some of the new "Smart" web threat features (and it was dirt cheap) so I'm going to restore to a clean image and install BD and see what that does. it'll be a couple days before I get it.

Thanks for your suggestions and follow through.

Cheers

GTx2015 · Oct 3, 2015

For what ever the browser is responding well today. I haven't done anything accept uninstall Firefox. I'm using chrome, but Chrome (and IE) have had the same issue previously (while FF was installed). It seems unlikely that FF affected all browsers, but the FF plugins do hang fairly frequently.

I've been a long time fan of FF, but I'm getting discouraged with it. It's become a bloated dog of an app. I wish others would add the bookmarks side bar feature. it's one of the features that kept me on FF so long.

GTx2015 · Oct 4, 2015

Well, I'm still waiting for Bitdefender, but my browsing has been fine for the past 2 days - ever since I removed firefox ...hmmm

DeadlyDays · Oct 5, 2015

Possibly a conflict between AV and browser? maybe a setting that AV was trying to push to browser because of you had FF, like a security plugin? I use Kaspersky and never any problems, I use Opera mainly with it though, but I have FF installed as well. I don't use any of the plugins though.

An odd situation, software conflicts can be hard to figure out though if that was the case.

GL

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