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Resolved Question

Internet working but browsers don't

Jul 16, 2018 1:13AM PDT

I have this problem for 1-2 weeks now, and only on my desktop computer.

The Problem:

I can play online games, I can listen to Spotify, the same wlan on my phone works perfectly. The only thing not working is all my browsers. Neither Chrome nor Mozilla or Edge work. And the speed is also terrible! I get maybe 2Mbit and should get 50-100Mbit when I load something via Steam.

But it isn't like the connection is completely unusable. I have the strange behavior that I can browse the internet like normal and normally fast (have a good internet connection, 125mbit/s) but suddenly everything stops working. No pages are loading and this persists sometimes for 10-15 minutes, sometimes for an hour. It's like 50/50 I can surf the internet or not.

What I tried:

Last month I was away from home on a different WLAN with my PC and it started in the last few days, and now I am back in my home network for almost a week and the problem continues.

Because the problem persists on several networks, I doubt the network is at fault here. Furthermore, I thought of any malware or virus, so I completely wiped my PC and installed a clean copy of Windows 10 so I doubt viruses or any software to be the culprit either.

I use a Netgear A6210 Wi-Fi adapter is not really old (half a year) and never was damaged or something like that, so I doubt that this makes the problems. I also updated my driver for it so that shouldn't be an issue.

Yesterday I called the support of my ISP and they could confirm that from the outside the connection is excellent, so they suspected it's a DNS problem. We tried to manually set the DNS, flush settings, and so on but nothing helped, and in the end he suspected that it might be a problem with the OS software aka Window 10. (Maybe something slipped through the new installation of the OS because I didn’t delete my data drives in the process?)

Furthermore I switched my network adapter (from USB to PCIe) and it is still bad. Plus I asked my other roommates if they had any problems and they did not have any so the router is also not at fault. I have absolutely no clue what this could be.

Speedtest phone (same Wlan, same Time):


Speedtest PC:


This is the error i get when a site in chrome does not load:

Post was last edited on July 16, 2018 5:52 AM PDT

Discussion is locked

Morrowind1 has chosen the best answer to their question. View answer

Best Answer

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Fixed
Jul 17, 2018 12:36AM PDT

I was able to fix it by resetting Windows 10 completely!

I was reinstalling Windows prior to it, but i think the thing that caused the error stayed altough every program hat to be reinstalled. But after completely resetting it + deleting everything on every drive i have (4 partitions) everything worked fine!

I have no more connection problems and the problem with the very slow speed was because of the new PCIE adapter i bought, because (i think the reason is) it was on the back of the pc (the antennas) and only support 2,4 ghz. The (pretty expensive) usb adapter, on top of my pc + able to use the 5ghz band (less disturbance in my flat) is able to get 100+ Mbps, while the other one only got about 10Mbps.

Thanks for your answers anyway Grin

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Answer
Since it's just your machine.
Jul 16, 2018 7:51AM PDT

And there's not much to work with as your post just spins around and basically tells me "it doesn't work" along with "you tried" DNS but not "I switched to another DNS" I have to go with you will have to reset W10 to stock and start over.

I can't guess if you installed Jerry's Internet Protection or torrent. Those details are just missing. There is no question I can ask here. There are some thousand causes but you have to tell what's different.

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Sadly your answer was neither productive nor helpful :D
Jul 16, 2018 8:06AM PDT

I am sorry but aside from your bad usage of commas, I am pretty sure my post does not simply say " i tried dns" and "it doesnt work". +Reinstalling Windoof and starting all over has already happened actually if you read my post Grin

I tried a variety of things which I tried to explain as accurately as I could, and i have no idea what Jerry's Internet Protection is and no torrent is now (after reinstalling windows) not installed on my PC.

Furthermore, if someone has knowledge about this subject I am pretty sure that there is a variety of questions one can ask AND I am pretty sure that there are not a thounsand different causes.

Also if I knew what was wrong i wouldn't be asking.

Happy

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I normally would ask for a Web Speccy.
Jul 16, 2018 8:16AM PDT

But since you can't use the web at all it seems, it's time to reinstall Windows and if that fails talk to the machine's maker.

Jerry's Internet Protection is my way of writing about all apps/suites that folk install after Windows. I had a client that installed an oddball AV Suite and it asked him for what protection level. He picked MAXIMUM and no web browsers worked.

Your story is not complete. So you are stuck with explaining more or just taking it back to its maker to fix.

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Answer
Hardware Issue Is Likely Present
Jul 16, 2018 11:02AM PDT

After consulting with someone at my workplace, I have concluded that a hardware issue is leading to the slow Internet speeds and time outs. Particularly, your router is most likely causing the slow speed. A speed test from a wired connection to your computer or phone would be useful to do. Also, how is your computer performing excluding the Internet, in terms of speed?

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Answer
Update: Try the following
Jul 16, 2018 11:34AM PDT

Try the following.

* Test the computer's connection to the router using a wired connection. While this test is being done, all other devices connected to the modem need to be off.

Post a copy of the speed test results in this thread.
Also, I need to know how old is your router.

Your computer can be ruled out as the source of the slow speed since it is processing 12.20 Mbps at the minimum and definitely 12.30 Mbps, for uploading. This means that the computer's CPU is functioning as it should be functioning. Before running the speed test, reboot your modem and router.

Thanks