Internet Is Very Erratic - Can You Help With This?

Viruses and worms
21

It seems faster, much faster, but when I try to pull up certain pages it still takes ages, for example trying to access this forum from google took ages, whilst when I put the url in it was quicker.

22

And its gone back to being dog slow (for certain sites - this one for example is quite quick, bing and google are ridiculously slow, in fact any site I haven’t already accessed since I ran ccleaner (ie its not in my cache) is very slow.

23

Hi Interista & essexboy,

Just thought of this possible cause. Sometimes running apps in the background after Chrome browser has been closed can really stop everything to a crawl, uncheck this feature in Google Chrome settings. Go to advanced settings and uncheck running background apps when Google Chrome has been closed,

polonus

24

My thoughts exactly Pol… Also empty the temp files when you close the browser, I do not know if you can do that with chrome or FF though

25

Hi essexboy,

That is part of the browser cache and you can also cleanse out temp files for AutoComplete settings in both firefox and Google Chrome.
For IE there is IE cache explorer an nice tool to cleanse cookies, temp files etc with one click.
For Google Chrome it is simple, go to chrome://chrome/settings/clearBrowserData and tick all,

polonus

26

Its working faster at the moment than it has in a week, I’ll let you know if it stays consistent.

27

In fact its still erratic, the speed drops quite significantly but then suddenly rises back up. I can’t understand it because surely if it was a problem with my computer the computer wouldn’t be capable of ever getting the high speeds.

28

Hi Interista,

Did you take a peak at taskmanager in Windows (get there through Ctr+Alt+Del) to see what is consuming all that mem.
You could also look at the taskmanager in Google Chrome to see what is happening there.
When was the last time that the computer was serviced against dust collecting (heat sink). This should be cleansed every half year so your computer may last 4 years longer. You can use a tool like SpeedFan to check temperatures are not becoming critical.
There could be a driver conflict that is causing this, there could be low availability of memory or install overkill,

polonus

29

Final option could be an ISP problem, which as it is very erratic may well be the cause

30

I have never had the dust cleansed out, never even knew it was necessary or where to go to get it done. Given that the computer is 6 or 7 years old it could be the problem.

I’ve got the ISP technicians to come out on Wednesday but they charge a fee once its not an ISP problem so I’ll run speedfan to see if that’s a problem, do everything I can to make sure its the ISP that’s the problem.

31

The figures on speedfan are as follows

CPU usage goes at something like 10% (average, this is a very rough average though, it goes between 4% and 21%)

Fan 1: 0 RPM Fan 2: 1444 RPM Fan 3: 0 RPM Fan 4: 0 RPM

Temperatures:
Local 42 degrees
Temp 1: 54 degrees
Temp 2: 39 degrees
HD0: 36 degrees
Core0: 35 degrees
Core 1: 66 degrees
Ambient: 0 degrees

I really appreciate what you are doing for me, I know that this forum isn’t strictly for this kind of problem.

32

My CPU usage is about 12-14% when I’m not doing too much, there are 52 processes and the commit charge is 647M/3938M - I have no idea whatsoever all this means sorry.

33

Temperatures look reasonable

Memory should not be an overriding problem

34

I’m starting to think its a problem with the ISP, for about half an hour it was going like an absolute bomb but its now awful again. I can’t see how, if its an error with my computer, that my computer would be capable of sustaining high speeds for a period of time. Maybe its that I don’t know anything about computers but it seems unlikely to me.

35

I feel that it is highly likely a line problem as opposed to the computer

36

The ISP serviceman came and within a few minutes he said it was Avast that is causing the problem. He said that because Avast scans everything as it comes in it slows down the speed as it can’t keep up with the highspeed ISPs.

Now, I have to say I believe him, as I have tried without avast for a few minutes and my connection is MUCH MUCH faster and more stable. However, there is a BIG but…

  1. I like Avast, I believe its very reliable (in perhaps four years it has let me down once, only once, and you could possibly put that down to my not scanning often enough).

  2. I like the fact its always scanning in the background - makes me feel safe.

  3. I find it very user friendly.

  4. I like the way people are so helpful on this forum.

So, is there a way around this problem without changing Antivirus?

37

It must be a trade off really a nice high speed or good protection… Myself I do not believe Avast causes a slow down that is at all noticeable, and I am running at about 12Mbs

38

Just done a test 10.37 with all shields, 10.48 with no shields

39

I am testing out his theory a little more. I do wonder whether he is right, but I wonder whether he’s attacking the wrong culprit. I’ve noticed even though it is faster, and a little more reliable, its still erratic. However, its set me thinking, I use BitMeter, and though I’ve used it for a long time, could it possibly be that giving me problems? Or FastVideoDownloader, or Firefox Adblocker?

40

Fast video would be one that I would initially disable and then bitmeter