Download rate affected by display drivers?

[TyphX]

Hello, i have recently done a clean install of windows, and reinstalled several applications from my previous configuration.
I noticed that the drivers i used for my graphics card (nvidia 285.62) were causing my download rate to go down on google chrome, so i rolled down to 275.33 and it sped up download speeds, but they still hover around 40 kb/s during regular downloads from a browser. I recently installed skyrim and had to download a few missing files from steam for some reason, and the download speeds from steam reached my maximum speed, 78kb/s, within a few seconds. I've used both the built in ethernet port on the motherboard and my networking card with little difference, and disabling ipv6 had no effect either. Can anyone help?

(QUICK NOTE: between display drivers (285.62 and 275.33) i had the default windows display driver and that had the dl speed working normally. i still need nvidia drivers however, as i do lots of gaming.)

Things that might be related to the problem:

Nvidia Driver version 275.33

Network adapters: nforce 10.100 mbps (built into motherboard)
Dynex 10/100 mbps pci network card (currently in use.)

Nvidia GTX 560 ti

Windows 7 SP1 (integrated sp1 from disk install, not the downloaded version, that's one of the reasons i re-installed, SP1 from windows update caused this same problem on the old install with the dl speeds shooting from 1 kb/s to 70 kb/s randomly.)

If you need anymore information, please tell me, i'm desperate to get this working.


QUICK EDIT: I've disabled my firewall, PC tools Firewall Plus, and that seemed to ease the limit up to around 72 kb/s, i'm going to keep this thread open for a few more days just in case something happens, if the mods allow me to.

QUICK EDIT 2: it's still not letting me use my maximum speed, and using rainmeter during downloads, it shows the network usage at 81 kb/s, while the program says it's about 10-20 kb/s slower. help?

 

[Saga Lout]

Test your download speed once every two hours from the same site, and preferably an FTP site. 72 to 80 kbps is very slow - even I get three or four times better than that and I live in the DSL Third World ccountry of Great Britain.

You can't rely on figures taken from different places because they may be the limiting factor. The only link I can see betwen your graphics driver and the ethernet adapters is if the graphics card takes more power when using the new drivers. Have you tried updating the NIC drivers?

 

[TyphX]

Test your download speed once every two hours from the same site, and preferably an FTP site. 72 to 80 kbps is very slow - even I get three or four times better than that and I live in the DSL Third World ccountry of Great Britain.

You can't rely on figures taken from different places because they may be the limiting factor. The only link I can see betwen your graphics driver and the ethernet adapters is if the graphics card takes more power when using the new drivers. Have you tried updating the NIC drivers?

well, i have the cheapest package from AT&T, which is 256 kb/s, but it never reaches that, it only reached about 80 kb/s maximum at a stable rate, but that was before.
Now my maximum dl rate is 73kb/s and that's very unstable, it bounces around from 56 kb/s to 73 kb/s with no reason on applications like utorrent and steam. I removed my firewall, to no avail, and disabled the shields on avast, but that also had no effect, so i turned them back on.
When i used speedtest, the download rate (after pinging the server, ping was about 38-49 ms average) froze at 0 for about 1-2 seconds before starting to download, which then erratically bounced around from 20 kb/s to 60 kb/s before stabilizing at a speed of 65 kb/s, then, near the end, bounced up to 80 kb/s.
Yes, i have tried finding a driver update for the card, but nothing comes up. I assume it's no longer supported (i bought it 2-3 years ago). I also tried using the built-in ethernet port on my motherboard, which has had no difference on the stability. Something i thought to be the problem early on was that, because my pci-e slot that i use for the card does not line up perfectly with the case cut-out, the cable did not go all the way in. right now it is able to be pushed in all the way, and it makes contact with all the pins (i think), but it moves a tad upwards because the case's pci slot cutout very slightly covers the ethernet slot. When i plugged the cable into the built-in ethernet slot, it made no difference, so i assume it is a software problem. Also, the drivers for my built-in ethernet port (nvidia 4 series chipset) are no longer supported and i cannot find them anywhere, so i only have the version windows update/driver install gave me.

EDIT: also, thanks for responding, check back on this thread often because i check it every hour or so. also, as said, my network monitor gadget on rainmeter says my network is at FULL usage (81 kb/s) during downloads.

EDIT 2: Another note: when i listen to a internet stream with windows media player (split infinity radio) it occasionally skips. i check my network usage and it ranges from 10 kb/s to 45 kb/s. Before the my usage when listening to split infinity was stable at 25-30 kb/s.

 

[TyphX]

for some reason i didn't get an email notification from your message...

 

[Saga Lout]

I frequently don't get them but thought it was just a UK site thing.

 

[TyphX]

I frequently don't get them but thought it was just a UK site thing.

yeah, thanks for the reply though.