# Web browsing is REALLY slow, but downloads are fine



## jweaver (Jul 4, 2011)

This is my first post here, so please bear with me... I was originally going to post this in the "malware" forum, but I am not convinced that linked to anything malicious and wanted to get peoples thoughts first.

I have 2-3MB/S DSL and a desktop PC connected to the router with a cable. Its running XP and in general its fine. Its stable.. Everything works and my downloads are in the 200MBytes/S region... But for some time (and it could be as long as a year), I have found Web Browsing to be slow... 

The reason its been so long is that since buying a Laptop and iPad, I rarely use the desktop for browsing and never thought anything of why it was slow... My Laptop/iPad connects wirelessly and they fly. Web browsing is instant and I never really considered that there was anything wrong. 

But in the last few days I have finally realised that something is wrong my with Desktop.. Very wrong.. Web browsing is so slow, its unusable..

Every page you visit, pauses at the "connecting with www....." and "waiting for www......" before finally loading. Even connecting to the routers own address (192.168.0.1) is slow. If I am honest, I always thought that this was a Network or Router problem, even though my wireless devices performed flawlessly. However, I have connected my laptop to the same port on the router, so that its now cabled (rather than wireless) and it works fine, so I know that its not a router/network fault and must be something on the PC...

The fact that the HTML page on the router is so slow doesn't bode well, and its this fact alone which now makes me realise how bad the problem is.

Here is a list of what I have done:

1. Changed my NIC card (I had a feeling based on another problem I had that this might be the cause)

2. Changed my IP address, just in case the router was in a funny state.

3. Ran every Spyware tool that I know of (Spybot, Adaware, Malwarebytes, etc) all come out clean

4. Compared all network settings between my desktop and laptop and they are the same.

5. Downloaded all of the latest XP updates.

6. Booted with my startup apps not running.

7. Changed my DNS serve to an external DNS provider (OpenDNS)

8. Verified that no proxy settings are in place.

As far as I can see, everything looks normal/fine... But Web browsing is painfully slow.. The actual transfer of the page is fine.. Its just the inital connection.. This is why I considered that DNS was to blame.. But ping/tracert are normal and the routes/times are the same as my laptop.

I should also point out that this isn't down to just one browser. I generally use Mozilla, but I have also tried with IE6 and Chrome and its the same.. And to be honest, I think that even Outlook is affected as when I get mail, it always sits there "Finding Mail Sever" before it starts to download.. So again it looks to be the initial connection to any address which has problems.

To give you an example of how bad it is, to load up a given page (i.e ebay) can take anything from 10-30 seconds before it even starts to load.. Where as on my Laptop its absolutely instant.

I have noticed that because many pages have other URLs (ads?) embedded into them, the problem is compounded, as it hangs at the connecting/waiting state for each and every URL that it tries to load..

There is one thing which is a bit odd.. Sometimes.. Only sometimes, I can load a page really quickly... I don't get the connecting/waiting phase.. It just loads.. So the problem isn't consistent.

Does anyone have any ideas? If you think that this is Malware related then I will gather the necessary logs and post in the appropriate forum, but I just wanted to get someones initial thought as to whether there is any hope to fixing this?


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## Rich-M (May 2, 2007)

Dead or dying hard drive is my first thought. Have you run chkdsk /r on it?


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## jweaver (Jul 4, 2011)

Rich-M said:


> Dead or dying hard drive is my first thought. Have you run chkdsk /r on it?


Now this is not impossible... I do have concerns about the Hard-Drive, although "Hard Drive Sential" is quite happy with it...

When I enter an URL and the browser connects/waits, as soon as it starts loading, its accompanied by noise of the hard drive seeking.

Also, the other fault I have had from time to time is that my hard-drive performance drops off the scale forcing me to hard-reset and then when I reboot, I get an error saying that no OS has been found.. This has always been cured by a complete power off of the PC.

So I am not saying that HD problems are not the cause, but I have to be honest and say that I don't see the connection between the HD and the fault I described since EVERYTHING else works normally.

I am running a chkdsk as I type this and will report back soon

Jon


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## jweaver (Jul 4, 2011)

Chkdsk ran clean.. No errors on my C drive.


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## Rich-M (May 2, 2007)

Did you run chkdsk /r though because errors aren't always the only problem. Free space all screwed up can cause these issues as well as corrupted files not caught.


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## karan.digital (Jul 4, 2011)

Web browsing depends on the ping too. Go to speedtest.net and post your result if possible Maybe some fault with ur isp


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## jweaver (Jul 4, 2011)

Rich-M said:


> Did you run chkdsk /r though because errors aren't always the only problem. Free space all screwed up can cause these issues as well as corrupted files not caught.


Yep.. Did /r and had to reboot to kick it off...

As for the ping times, they are good.. I get 81ms, which is lower than my Laptop/iPad (over Wifi) which work fine.

Jon.


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

I may be stating the obvious, but did you switch out the Ethernet cable? Did you try a different Port on the Router. Did you go to Speedtest.net? Download the ISO image for Hitachi Drive Fitness Test burn the image to CD using IMGBurn and boot off of the newly created CD and run the short and extended tests.


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## jweaver (Jul 4, 2011)

spunk.funk said:


> I may be stating the obvious, but did you switch out the Ethernet cable? Did you try a different Port on the Router. Did you go to Speedtest.net? Download the ISO image for Hitachi Drive Fitness Test burn the image to CD using IMGBurn and boot off of the newly created CD and run the short and extended tests.


I have changed the cable, tried a different port on the router and even connected my Laptop to the same port using the same cable as my Desktop and it works fine.

So whilst I initally believed this to be a router/network fault (due to the other issues I have hinted at), I am now 100% sure this isn't the case.

As for Speedtest, this is the site I use to verify the speed.. I consistently get good pings/download/upload speeds which are in line with my DSL profile.. 

I will look at the Drive Fitness Test tool later on, but I am still not convinced that this is hard-drive releated to be honest.

Jon


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## jweaver (Jul 4, 2011)

I have tried the HDD Fitness Test and the drive checks out fine.

Over the weekend, I found a few posts from people with similar problems and tried out a few suggestions...

One of htese was to use the 'netsh' command to 'reset' the IP stack and also at this time I did a Windows Update and ran the latest "mrt"..

Somewhere during all of this, something happened which fixed the problem.. I don't know which step did it, but part way through the day, my Broswer started working normally..

ANd its worked normally for 24 hours... So today I decided to look at my normal BitTorrent site to download a few episodes of "Mythbusters", because we don't get them in the UK.

The first torrent downloaded into Vuze immediately... And then I searched for the next episode.. And when I did this, my problems were back again.

Now I come to think about it, this has happened before... I have sometimes had no problems with the web, but have then been in the process of downloading a 'torrent' and this has caused web browsing to be slow...

Before I continue, when I talk about 'downloading', I am not actually talking about downloading the actual video.. But I am simply talking about downloading the torrent file...

Now this might be a red herring, but in truth, now I think about it, this has happened before... This leads me to a couple of conclusions.

1. Since we are taking 'torrent's, could it be some kind of malicious software which is triggered by the torrent site on question? Since I have checking using MRT, Adaware, Spybot and Malwarebytes this seems unlikely.

2. Could it be the act of my torrent software actually downloading software which is causing this.. I would say this is the most likely explantion, but if I stop the downloads and kill the application, it still happens.. And even if I reboot and never load the torrent software, it still happens.

So I am now at a loss.. How/why did it start working? I know I was doing a lot of things, but there was no single point where it started working... But more importantly, why is it broken again.

I am at a loss now and am starting to get more than a little frustrated.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Jon


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## jweaver (Jul 4, 2011)

Do you know what, I think it IS Vuze!!

I have removed Vuze from my startup and rebooted and Browsing seems fine again.. But as soon as I launch Vuze, it seems to go slow again.

I have a feeling that Vuze slows it down IF its downloading something.. I will do a bunch of tests tonight to see what I can find.

After doing a google search for "vuze slow browsing" I can see that I am not alone, so I am swaying towards the idea that this is the cause...

Jon


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## Rich-M (May 2, 2007)

Congratulations, you have learned all by yourself, what any Security Mod could have told you at anytime and that is that we cannot help you if you insist on using torrent downloaders as they are a guaranteed access for all kinds of internet "nasties". That is why the very first thing they do when cleaning up a system, is refuse to work with anyone who have torrent downloaders present. Don't think removing one thing will make you safe either if you continue doing this.


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## Dandy12 (Dec 15, 2011)

Jon

You did a fantastic job of analyzing this problem. I was having the same problem but did not agree to think disk, spyware, Internet settings were the cause. After reading your analysis I did a netsh ... Reset and voila Internet web browsing is pieceful. Thank you.

Ajay


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