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General discussion

DSL download speed slow?

Oct 20, 2008 2:47PM PDT

My computer recently became very slow when downloading from the internet. I have Verizon DSL and am running off Windows XP. My problem isn't that my internet connection is slow, because it isn't at all. The only time anything is slow is when I try to download something. I will start the download and if I try to click on any other open browser windows to refresh another page or click on a link it is extremely slow. This is irritating because my computer has never acted like this before, only for about a month now and I can't figure out what the problem is. I talked with a Verizon technician and he told me to delete my temporary files, cookies, etc. which I did and he ran a line test and said that I should be getting the full 3mb(?) I am subscribed to. He was no help. I asked him if it was my modem and he said no because this would affect all of my web activity, not just downloading. I have scanned my computer with Ad-Aware, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and Windows Live OneCare and gotten rid of any maliciousness going on there. It didn't fix it. I also used Program Sleuth to see if there were any programs running that I couldn't see. There weren't. I defragmented my hard drive, ran a diagnostics test on my hard drive, gotten rid of unneeded programs and ran Memtest86 to check my memory. It was good. I have 36.9 GB of free space on my main hard drive. I ran a speedtest and here are my results:
Speed Test #59604814 by dslreports.com
Run: 2008-10-21 00:24:03 EST
Download: 434 (Kbps)
Upload: 717 (Kbps)
In kilobytes per second: 52.9 down 87.5 up
Boost: 435
Latency: 52 ms
Tested by server: 9 flash
User: anonymous
User's DNS: verizon.net
Compared to the average of 1136 tests from verizon.net:
* download is 93% worse, upload is 67% worse

This is my last resort to ask for any ideas as to why my computer would slow down so much while downloading something as simple as an mp3 file from a legit mp3 site. I'm sorry for the long post. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Discussion is locked

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simple explanation
Oct 24, 2008 7:20AM PDT

your problem lies in that when something is downloaded, it utilizes most of your bandwidth (same way with uploading) unless you have multiple internet connections or if you have fiber.

That why pages load so much slower b/c it's competing with the active download for bandwidth.

I've never seen an internet connection with an upload speed faster than the download one.

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did you get the answer?
Oct 31, 2008 5:54AM PDT

Hi, We had to install a new hard drive and have been slowly getting everything to work (finding the right drivers, etc). We are finally more or less up and running, except we have the same issue as you have. The dsl internet connection is up to par (I think the same as yours), but downloading ANYthing takes about 10-30 times longer than it did before we switched the harddrives... and with this so new and clean, there are no fragmentation issues, etc. So... did you get the answer to make it work for you?

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bad cable
Nov 3, 2008 12:38PM PST

Thanks for the response, our issue was with a bad cable running from the wall to the modem. We didn't think that was the problem as the cable we had already was pretty new. After we changed that, the download speed did go up however it still isn't what we should be getting from our service.

If you're having problems with your internet and use Verizon, they have an online help center where you can talk to someone from Verizon via chat window. They'll share your computer screen and try to see if they can find the problem for you, at verizon website.