Delay between logging on and the internet connecting properly

Marvin · 22 Jan 2011 at 15:59

Just wondering whether anyone's got any ideas here.

I recently got Virgin 50mb installed. Before I had a Netgear WNR854T and a modem. Now I have their 'Super Hub' which is Netgear based.

Anyway, I used to use Homeplugs, before finding that in my house they are limited to around 15mb/s, so I now have a 30m Cat5e cable, which nets me the full 50mb/s.

The problem I have however is that on my PC, after logging in, Steam makes connection with its server and fires up, detects friends online and so on. However, anything using HTTP, POP/SMTP takes about 30s to go online properly, which is really annoying. I don't think anyone else in the house has this problem, but then again my PC starts up around 30s faster.

I assume this is a config problem at my end rather than the router's, but I thought I'd check.

Duke · 22 Jan 2011 at 16:08

Control Panel -> Internet Options -> Connections tab -> Lan Settings -- make sure nothing is ticked in there.

Marvin · 22 Jan 2011 at 16:48

I had 'automatically detect settings' on, just going to see if that's made the difference...

Duke · 24 Jan 2011 at 12:45

...?

Marvin · 25 Jan 2011 at 10:39

Ah - yes it did, thanks Duke!

Duke · 25 Jan 2011 at 17:19

np, always worth checking those boxes if you get slow startup.

Marvin · 26 Jan 2011 at 16:12

Ok, looks like I spoke too soon. It worked at first, but it's now back to 20+ second waits. Steam is unaffected (can see friends list etc). I guess it's HTTP settings...

Duke · 26 Jan 2011 at 17:03

You could try changing the DNS servers either on the router (which will change it for the client systems) or just on your network card settings.

Change them to 8.8.4.4 and 8.8.8.8 which is Google - http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/