Post edited 1:26 am – August 8, 2010 by Ben Carpenter

ceejayex said:

Hi Fellas,

Heard your show on WJR and I need some help.  I will try to explain best I can.

We have a dell desktop and a Dell mini 10 running XP through a Linksys WRT54GS router with a SpeedStream 5100 modem courtesy of AT&T.  Also have a couple of other things running off the router… but with just the 2 computers we have problems.  The main problem is that web pages load really slowly usually timing out.  We are constantly having to hit the reload button several times before we can the view the page.  I have tried all kinds of Malware programs, deleting temp files, defragging, etc.

Can you help?

Thanks

ceejayex

I have  the same router that you have but have had no experience with ATT or the modem  you mentioned.

I do have DSL through a small local telco.  Once in a while the speed seems to slow down a lot, when that happens I unplug the modem and the router one at a time and try it again.  Most of the time the speed will inprove and most of the time it is the modem.  Your operation may very, but it is worth a try to see what happens.

Hi Ceejayex,

  I have a couple thoughts. What service level are you paying for?  I see DSL as low as 768k down, and at those speeds, it isn't hard to saturate the connection.

1. Are you perhaps running any sort of peer to peer, or bittorrent type software?  Oftentimes that can consume a lot of bandwidth and your web browsing experiance can time out, if the software isn't configured properly.
2. Are you running a open wi-fi network, or a low security network (WEP security for example).  You may have someone else logging on and using your internet, and they could be running a peer to peer or other application that takes up a lot of bandwidth.  If you are running an open (no password required) network, I would reccomend securing it.
3. Are the computers plugged into the router via ethernet, or wireless?  If over wireless, do you have good signal strength on both computers?  If a signal is low enough, your connection speeds will suffer.

I would attempt to plug a computer directly into the modem with an ethernet, bypassing any wireless issues and the router. (Make sure you have the windows firewall turned on and are fully up to date on windows updates.)  If your internet is still slow at that point, then it items 2-3 are probably not to blame, and if item 1 isn't an issue, then it is probably the modem, or the ATT service. 

Okay, if when connected directly to the modem you had no problems, then your internet is probably fine. 

Have you verified that you do have this problem when limewire is closed?

If you were able to turn on the laptop for the first time and connect right to the internet, then your wireless network is unsecured.  The first thing I would do is to secure it (In case other people are connecting to your network and using your internet, thus slowing you down). 

Here is a link to the directions from Linksys:  Make sure to do this from the computer that is plugged in via ethernet, as the laptop will lose it's wireless connection once you set a password

http://www6.nohold.net/Cisco2/…..p;slnid=15

When setting a password, it should be ideally a random string of letters and numbers, and 10 or more characters long.  You will need this password to join the wireless network.

Let us know if that helps.

Kurt Hines said:

Okay, if when connected directly to the modem you had no problems, then your internet is probably fine. 

Have you verified that you do have this problem when limewire is closed?

If you were able to turn on the laptop for the first time and connect right to the internet, then your wireless network is unsecured.  The first thing I would do is to secure it (In case other people are connecting to your network and using your internet, thus slowing you down). 

Here is a link to the directions from Linksys:  Make sure to do this from the computer that is plugged in via ethernet, as the laptop will lose it's wireless connection once you set a password

http://www6.nohold.net/Cisco2/…..p;slnid=15

When setting a password, it should be ideally a random string of letters and numbers, and 10 or more characters long.  You will need this password to join the wireless network.

Let us know if that helps.

Well Kurt,

I did what you said yesterday and the rest of the day worked out to be error free, but then I remembered before I could do what you said, I had to reset the modem and router.  This morning I am back to square one.  Already had to reset router and modem this morning.  Let me know what you think.

Thanks 

Chris

Kurt Hines said:Okay, so you secured your network with a password, and then you were all good, until you reset your router.  What kind of reset did you do?  A Hard reset (pressing in the button on the back of the router), will put you back to the factory settings, which is an un-secured network. A soft reset is simply unplugging the router and plugging it back in.  That wouldn't change the settings.  Let me know.

I did a soft reset.  I always, when needed, do soft resets.  And since I reset this morning, I haven't had any problems.

Kurt Hines said:

Are you resetting the modem?  It could simply be that you have a bad modem.  The fact that you worked fine when plugged directly into the modem makes this less likely, but if you didn't leave it plugged in that long, the problem may simply not have occured before you switched back.

If resetting the router fixed the problem, then you have a bad router.  Since you did work fine when plugged into the modem, this is a likely option.

I am guessing you might be resetting both the modem and router at once.  Try just resetting the router, and see if that fixes it for a while.  If so, I would get a new router.  If on the other hand, that does nothing, there is a good chance the modem is to blame, and replacing that will fix the problem.

Thanks Kurt,

I do in fact soft set both and will try one at a time and try to pin this problem down.

Thanks for all your help!