websites loading v.slowly despite good line speed

Samfau2

Samfau2

Samfau2

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Joined
2 Oct 2008
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225
Recently ive noticed that web pages are loading extremely slowly and generally the internet is very sluggish to use, For example, after clicking the link to Amazon etc in my bookmarks bar it takes 20-30 seconds for the page to load fully. Youtube vids are another very annoying problem as they seem to take forever to load.

I've checked our line with the speed test at www.thinkbroadband.com several times and each time its reporting about 6.5mbps downstream and 0.5 upstream, which is actually pretty good for our internet. Its meant to be 2mbps but i think they upgraded us to 8 recently. Anyway, in the past we have been scraping 1mbps.

Despite this the internet seems to be trudging along at a snails pace and its quite frustrating at times.

all the computers in the house (2 desktops and 3 laptops) use wireless and my own is reporting excellent connectivity at the full 54mbps. They all use firefox 3 too.

Is there anyway i can try and diagnose whats up without ringing my isp? I think that the livebox is possibly not up to the job of handling all 5 machines, could this be a possible issue?
 
Does the page start loading instantly, or does it spend ages then load quickly?
Is it the same with another browser?
 
As a further question to tolien's, what does the browser say while the page is loading? (e.g. "Loading ..." in the status bar)

A couple of other thoughts -
Router headache - tried rebooting it since the problems started?
Wireless lan - tried a wired connection with no other pcs connected?
DNS problem - is it faster if you refresh a webpage or use an IP address?

HTH
 
webpages tend to appear partly, e.g most of the text will appear almost instantly but then it will say transferring data/images from www.example.com in the status bar (firefox) and have the loading in background cursor, then it will take absolutely ages for the loading cursor/icon in firefox tab to go away and the webpage to be fully loaded. i.e. saying "done" in the status bar. Sometimes it seems to take so long i don't think it would ever finish, its like it gets stuck on just a few items on the page.

Its exactly the same on all the pc's in the house when using either internet explorer or firefox.

I haven't tried rebooting the router as of yet, last time i did, it died somehow and wouldnt reconnect for several hours, but its a piece of junk so i think my problems may be arising from there.

Good idea with the wired connection ill try that with a laptop later today and report back.

And as for the DNS, if i try refreshing when its part way through transferring its pretty much the same and also connecting via IP address is similar if not a bit worse.
 
Hi Samfau2, my first guess was DNS but it doesn't seem to be that, and my finger of suspiscion is currently pointing at the router (especially if it doesn't reconnect quickly!) but it would be worth trying a wired connection first.
I don't know anything about the (Orange?) Livebox I'm afraid, but any half-decent router should be able to cope with normal traffic from 5 pcs.
Another semi-random thought - is there any P2P traffic going on? (either your ISP traffic shaping P2P and all other all traffic, or the router failing to cope with many NAT connections).
 
hi mate, thanks for your input. The router is pretty pants, always losing signals and the range is terrible. my isp, orange (the mobile phone company) took over from wanadoo who took over from freeserve back in the day. Im thinking of changing provider soon anyway as my current setup is great value for money.

Still havent tried a wired connection but will do soon. I do use P2P sometimes but the problem persists even when i dont and havent done for some time.

will post back soon with results from wired connection, bit busy atm.

Cheers
 
If the router's having a problem with P2P, you might have to wait a long time for the router to expire any NAT table entries unless you restart the router, so it could still be causing a problem.
 
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