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nirosa

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Very slow Internet browsing - XP Pro - wireless router - P2P

Hi,

My configuration :
Athlon XP1700+, 768MB, DSL 768/128, Belkin wireless 54G. Router MTU : 1454
Running on average P2P @ around 40KB/s, 30 files.

I was previously using Windows 2000 and could reasonably browse Internet even though it was a little slow.

I now have upgraded Windows XP and gradually reinstalling the SW I had before.
Since a week my computer has become drastically slow. Internet pages take about 10s to load.
In the past, with the same computer and HW configuration, internet browsing was acceptable also with P2P configured the same way.

I read somewhere the number of simultaneous connections might be limited by the router but again I had no HW changes (neither on computer side, nor on router side)

1/ How can I figure out where is the issue ?
2/ Is there a SW which allows optimisation of Internet taking into account I am NOT connected directly to the DSL modem but that I am connected behind a wireless router (54Mbits) ?
Avatar of scampgb
scampgb
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Hi nirosa,

Given that nothing has changed on a hardware front, it's likely to be a software issue.

As you've just reinstalled the OS, I'm guessing that it might be infected with a virus or some spyware.

I suggest that you do a through spyware scan with something like AdAware (http://www.lavasoftusa.com) and make sure that you have anti-virus software installed that is up to date.
Use the AV software to do a thorough scan of the PC.

If that doesn't help, it would be useful if you could post a list of the software you've installed on the PC.  If the problem only started recently, and you've been installing software - it's likely that this could be the cause.

I hope that this helps - let me know if I can be of any further help.
Avatar of nirosa
nirosa

ASKER

Regarding SW, I basically have the same SW as the ones I had with Windows 2000 before.

One new SW I installed / ran recently is  TuneUp utilities 2004 to try to solve this issue...It did not help

Regarding PC protection I have :
* Norton System Works 2003
* Adaware (it is setup to make a check at every startup and Adwatch is permanently running)

My windows XP version is SP1.

Any other suggestion ?
Hmm- do you only encounter this issue with P2P applications?

Try doing a DSL speed test.  There are a wide variety of them available, but you could try http://www.dslreports.com/stest
Avatar of kenfcamp
One thing to check out.

"IF" you have a firewall setup on your system (through virus scan or standalone. router etc) make sure you "DO NOT" also have the XP firewall enabled.

I have noticed that it does (or can) tend to slow things down, expecially in conjunction with another firewall
Avatar of nirosa

ASKER

Windows XP firewall is always desactivated.

I tried without having P2P running and it is much faster.
I limited P2P upload to 12KB/s out of possible 16KB/s (128kbits) in order to leave enough room for surfing and acknowledge messages.

As mentioned earlier I somehow suspect a limitation in the number of simultaneous connections (how to verify this ?)

Another point which came to my attention while browsing through forums is that my router is setup to PPPoE with MTU 1454 (Belkin router seem to accept only between 1440 to 1454). However, my provider in Germany (Tiscali.de) recommends 1492.

Could this play a role (It seems not when P2P is not running) ?

I have permanentlyt disabled ICMP in the router

As I said the P2P uses 40KB / 12KB out of 91KB / 16KB, so I would not expect that browsing is limited by the P2P speed.

Any ideas where to look ?
Strange that you can't configure a larger MTU.  Maybe a firmware on the router will help?
Ordinarily, I'd say use the ISP recommended MTU.  It'll affect downloads, but simple browsing shouldn't be a problem.

You said that you'd configure P2P UPLOAD, what about the DOWNLOAD settings?  THat's what will affect your downloading/browsing speed.

Take a look at NetLimiter - http://www.netlimiter.com/ - that'll allow you to play around with the amount of bandwidth allocated to each process on your machine.

How is your PC performance with everything other than web-browsing?
Are you OK with downloading emails for example?
Avatar of nirosa

ASKER

I have the latest FW for my router (F5D7230-4) european version.
I know it looks strange but Belkin shows clearly in setup menu 1440-1454...why..no idea

I have a 768/128 kbits down/up DSL connection (96/16 KB/s).
I use eMule configured for Max : 86/12 KB/s

Regarding other SW, everything runs well. I can even burn a DVD while having P2P running and surfing.

Most optimizing SW I see seems to care about WinXP and not to care whether it is behind a router or not. I guess this changes the game quite a lot regarding optimization

I will check Netlimiter
I'm guessing that the issue is with the P2P application.  I'm not familiar with eMule I'm afraid.
I think that NetLimiter will let you analyse what's going on though.

If you've got eMule for upto 86Kb download out of a theoretical 96Kb, then I'm guessing this is the issue.
Avatar of nirosa

ASKER

I tried Netlimiter but it only informs about download/upload speeds.
BTW, I did not say that I download/upload @ 86/12 but that these are the limits which I have setup. Generally I have 40KB down / 12KB up and therefore I do not understand why surfing is so slow as theoretically it could up to 96KB / 16KB which gives some margin.

Currently it takes on average 10s to have a web page built up completely...
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Fatal_Exception
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