I had a D-Link router for about a week once. Sloooooooooooow. I tried the "unplug everything and try again" method at least 100 times. I tried changing the channel of the wireless connection, I tried changing the IP address of the router. It would be fast again for a day or two and then back to slow. NOTHING worked to fix this problem.

Upgraded to a Linksys WRT54G, and the problem mysteriously disappeared.

Not to say one router is better than another, but I know which one I prefer.

Also, when my old wireless card was on the fritz (on its way out) it was super slow even with the Linksys router. Swapped that out and its been quick as lightning ever since.

 

Hey Matt...thanks for all your help in this. Honestly, I don't know how the laptop is working. I'll check that tomorrow and let you know. I did have a security thingee in the router when it was first installed, so I'm assuming I still have it, unless it was lost when D-Link re-configured it the other day. As of right now, the speed is pretty good. Much better than it was earlier today. I wanted to throw the damn thing out the window. But tonight I did lose internet and had to shut down the modem. Sometimes I hate computers.

 

Excellent advice.

I have wireless router which also has four "wired" ports. My main PC is using a "wired" port and the rest of the PCs on my network use wireless. In my Netgear router configuration, I have entered the MAC addresses of all the computers on my network. This only allows those computers to use the network.

I also turned off the advertise function. So my wireless network is not being advertised.

Dave

 

Yea check that, if it is faster than the one, then that would rule out the modem or teh router and indicate it's the computer and we'll need to go another direction with it. It could be configuration or it could be the virus software....

It;s still a good idea to encrypt the wireless broadcast though and take other precations to keep and/or scare people away from it.

 

I would first take the router out of the equation by hooking the pc directly to the modem. Make sure you have a firewall on though. Power everything down first then power up the modem and let it go through it's self test cycle before booting up the pc. If you still have slow speeds then you know it's not the router. Thats when you run a tracert to see where the connection starts getting bogged down. From the command prompt just type
tracert www.google.com then hit enter (or any other url). If the readings start out low like 20-50ms and then jump to a few hundred or more ms that's where the bottleneck is. If it's on one of your isp's nodes they might eventually get it fixed. If it's off their network it's pretty much out of their hands. Note: You can do the tracert even when hooked through the router, you'll just have an extra hop at the start. Taking it out of the loop is the fastest way to eliminate it though.
Also if you have any other computers on the router, make sure they aren't running any file sharing programs like Limewire, a bit torrent client, etc. in the background. Also make sure you don't have any spyware running in the background or viruses. All of the above can have an impact on the other computer's connection. You could also live in an area that has too many customers on the same node and it's getting overloaded.
That said, I have the same router and it's never been the culprit in a slow speed problem. I use the wireless and only have WEP enabled. Then again, there's probably not another wireless device within miles of where I live so someone else leaching off my connection isn't an issue. When my speeds get slow, 98% of the time it's because the wife is downloading movies or something, the rest of the time it's a problem with my isp.
Here's a good place to check your speeds http://www.speedtest.net/

 

I think I got ahead of myself there. Sorry. I should have said to run the tracert first. If you have high ping times right from the beginning then take the router out of the loop. High pings at the beginning means it could be a problem with the isp like overloaded nodes. I found when calling tech support it's always best to be connected directly to the modem because if you tell them you have a router connected that's the first thing they will blame it on and they'll usually have you take it out anyways while they troubleshoot. The next thing they blame it on is viruses and spyware. I'm always ready for them because I can always duplicate it on more than one computer and if they really want to be hardnosed I'll hook one up that has a clean install on it and duplicate it.
It could also be a problem with the modem. What model is it?
Does it happen a lot in the evening? Like when everyone in the neighborhood is home from work and checking their mail/surfing?

Here's what a normal tracert looks like. This morning my connection is as good as it ever is.
Tracing route to www.f150online.com [66.179.14.118]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 26 ms 29 ms 29 ms 24.66.132.1
3 36 ms 34 ms 33 ms rd1so-ge3-0-0-6.cg.shawcable.net [64.59.132.131]

4 35 ms 30 ms 35 ms rc1so-ge6-0.cg.shawcable.net [66.163.71.129]
5 49 ms 47 ms 48 ms rc1wh-pos12-0.vc.shawcable.net [66.163.76.10]
6 48 ms 47 ms 48 ms rc2wt-pos7-0.wa.shawcable.net [66.163.76.154]
7 51 ms 48 ms 51 ms GigabitEthernet4-0.GW11.SEA1.ALTER.NET [63.65.78
.33]
8 49 ms 47 ms 53 ms 0.so-7-2-0.XT1.SEA1.ALTER.NET [152.63.107.18]
9 131 ms 205 ms 143 ms 0.so-7-0-0.XL1.ATL4.ALTER.NET [152.63.86.106]
10 112 ms 114 ms 113 ms POS6-0.GW1.ATL4.ALTER.NET [152.63.86.81]
11 117 ms 120 ms 118 ms sungard-gw.customer.alter.net [65.192.28.226]
12 120 ms 121 ms 117 ms atlir7-vl-1.sgns.net [66.179.12.11]
13 123 ms 120 ms 120 ms 66.179.14.44
14 120 ms 119 ms 120 ms f150online.com [66.179.14.118]

Trace complete.

 

Thanks for all your help guys. But I have to say, the thought of doing some of these things is scaring me. Keep in mind I am IT illiterate. I pretty much only know how to plug and unplug things. I can get by as long as I have someone walking me through this stuff. Thankfully I had patient people talking to me when I needed to call. I think I am scared of this stuff because when I went to renew my anti-virus (Norton Internet Security), my computer crashed. I was on the phone with Dell for 6 hours total. But I actually got it going again. That was a big feat for me. As of right now, my internet is running good. I wanted to mention again, that when I hooked up my modem directly to my PC bypassing the router, the connection was very fast. It is good at this moment, but probably not as fast as it was then. Matt, I didn't try my laptop yet, but I will do that in the next couple of hours. Thanks again guys. I really do appreciate all your help.

 

There is a little insight..... I'm going to guess that we will find it's your norton.

Dont worry, I worked 2 years help desk/tech support for a local ISP, you are by far not the most illeterate person I've helped. Some of these people should not be allowed to turn on a computer....... Yet I was able to walk them through and get them going.

 

Thanks Matt. My Norton is up for re-newal again on 2/17. I keep getting the pop-up warning to re-new now or later and I keep checking re-new later. See, I'm chicken. Think I should just get another anti-virus service?

 

Dang, sucks to have that connection don't it....

Tracing route to www.f150online.com [66.179.14.118]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.2.1
2 * * 1 ms 192.168.1.1
3 25 ms 25 ms 25 ms mo-76-4-160-1.dhcp.embarqhsd.net [76.4.160.1]
4 25 ms 25 ms 25 ms crmowrbg01 [69.68.110.242]
5 29 ms 29 ms 30 ms sl-gw9-kc-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.223.129.189]
6 30 ms 29 ms 29 ms sl-bb20-kc-1-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.23.49]
7 41 ms 40 ms 41 ms sl-bb25-fw-13-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.20.4]
8 41 ms 40 ms 40 ms sl-bb25-fw-11-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.11.45]
9 57 ms 57 ms 56 ms sl-bb22-atl-6-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.8.66]
10 57 ms 56 ms 56 ms sl-gw11-atl-9-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.12.86]
11 57 ms 57 ms 57 ms sl-sunga-14-0.sprintlink.net [160.81.93.214]
12 57 ms 57 ms 57 ms 64.238.202.85
13 57 ms 57 ms 57 ms atlir7-vl-2.sgns.net [66.179.12.43]
14 58 ms 58 ms 58 ms 66.179.14.44
15 58 ms 57 ms 57 ms f150online.com [66.179.14.118]

Trace complete.

_____________________________________

Pinging www.f150online.com [66.179.14.118] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 66.179.14.118: bytes=32 time=57ms TTL=50
Reply from 66.179.14.118: bytes=32 time=56ms TTL=50
Reply from 66.179.14.118: bytes=32 time=56ms TTL=50
Reply from 66.179.14.118: bytes=32 time=56ms TTL=50

Ping statistics for 66.179.14.118:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 56ms, Maximum = 57ms, Average = 56ms

And I'm running slower than ussual do to the ice storm, many people dont even have phones here right now, ourentire infastructure is crippled.

 

Most ISP's have a free virus software for thier customers. Check at verizon.com, log in and see. If they do then download that, then turn off norton and install it.

Removing norton is a PIA..... you will have to get someone to do that, becasue you have to go in the registery.

 

I have to get someone to remove it? Is it OK to run another software while Norton is still on my computer? The only one I see Verizon offering is Verizon Internet Security Suite. 30 days free then $4.99 a month.

 

No dont do that one, no need to pay that much for a generic.....

Norton pretty well takes over a computer and it doesnt play well with others.
Once you fire up the laptop, and we check the speeds of each, and run some diagnostics, then we'll know more for sure. If it's not norton, then after we get that going then we'll take care of your virus protection needs. Right now start at the top and narrow it down. Thats 100% of any trouble shooting on a computer or network, then knowing what the common problems are.

 

OK Matt...I'll let you know. We can take our time with this since it's running OK right now. But I will keep you informed. Thanks again so much.

 

Is your router hooked back up now?