Been having some computer issues lately, mainly a very slow and unresponsive internet.

When I boot up, I can get the internet going for a while, though it's slow and then it just slows down completely after a short while. Web pages that were previously loaded are blank, with the little icon spinning around like it's trying to access the page.

It got to the point where I called my cable company (Comcast) and they said my modem was out of date. Seemed to make sense, as I bought it over 7 years ago. Of course, they tried to sell me on renting one of theirs, but I prefer to own. They recommended a couple of models and I ordered one.

The modem was easy enough to hook up. I called the cable company to activate and "provision" my new modem. It seemed to work and all was well. But after a short while, it was back to where it was before with my old modem. I have gone back and forth with the cable company (three times) and each time they say there's connectivity and everything's fine on their end. I also spoke to tech support from the modem manufacturer and they said it sounds like a speed issue.

It's also affected skype for me. While I can do a video chat, skype won't recognize my headset mic. I have tried adjusting audio settings in both windows and Skype, but no avail. Alternately, Skype tells me that it's either my microphone or a slow internet connection.

I have run malware bytes and norton scans, but nothing seems to do any good. In fact, I'm surprised my internet has allowed me enough time to write this post.

My computer is a five year old ASUS laptop, used primarily for internet surfing.

Anybody have any ideas?

have you run the disc clean-up and the defragmenter?

sorry, but that is all i know

Have you tried another device? Tablet, phone, etc. If it happens on those, you can eliminate the computer.

Alternately, take the computer to somewhere like Dunkin Donuts or B&N and try it on their free WiFi (assuming you're going WiFi - wired is a little harder to find).

You want to make sure it's not the computer so you can tell Comcast it works elsewhere so it's not the computer.

Or, if you really think there might be some nasty stuff on there, go to Smiff's house and try it.

My parents just had an issue w/Comcast. Dropping Internet just about every day. They didn't know it for a while, but it turned out other people were having issues with Comcast services, and they had to fix something in the junction box.

Another option is to download free trial versions of highly regarded security programs like Malwarebytes & scan the pc.

I would guess you're dealing with 1 (or more of 3 issues):

1. Comcrap
2. Malware
3. Failing hardware in your pc

This is all good advice. I would add that if your major issues are with browsing, try a different browser and clean the cache/histor/cookies on the one you use normally if the other browser is better.

Chris, you mentioned that you are using a five-years-old laptop and that you upgraded your modem. Not wanting to assume anything, let me ask you a few basic questions:

1) Are you using Wi-Fi?

2) If so, how old is your wireless router?

3) Have you tried plugging the laptop directly in with a network cable?

4) Are you using IE 11 as your internet browser, or Chrome, Mozilla, or something else? Make sure you have the latest version of the browser software installed.

When I upgraded my cable modem to a newer DOCSIS 3.0 model last year, I also bought a new wireless router that could take advantage of the higher speed capability. Plug your laptop into a wired connection with a Cat5 cable and run a speed test, if you get higher speeds close to what Comcast is saying you should see, then your problem is likely in the wireless connection.

If your router is really old, a good suggestion would be to upgrade to a newer model. I bought a dual-band gigabit router which got great reviews but was still somewhat affordable, and most devices like our phones saw an immediate improvement in connection speed.

My daughter's laptop, which is several years old, still had very slow internet, because its internal modem was a cheap piece of crap with older technology. Instead of opening up the computer and replacing it, I disabled it and purchased a wireless nano USB adapter for under twenty bucks. It's basically a tiny little wifi device that plugs into a USB port on the laptop, and only sticks out a quarter-inch. This solved her connectivity issues, and she now has a faster and more reliable wireless connection.

One other thought -- check your available hard drive space, and see if it is dangerously close to being full. I have seen cases recently where there was less than 1% free space left, which drastically affected performance. Also, you ought to check your temporary internet files folder and empty it. Depending on your operating system, the location may vary, but it can grow out of control. Just last week, I helped someone delete the contents of their "Content.IE5" folder, which had over 50 GB of temp files and images in it. After cleaning that, their internet browsing sped up tremendously.

These suggestions might not apply to your specific circumstance, but I hope some of it might prove helpful.

Good luck!

Reading NP3's response, it struck me...we're trying to help someone who's having trouble getting on the Internet by giving him advice on the Internet.

The reason I mentioned a malware scan is the malicious toolbars can slow you way down also.

I'm running into that with a Win 10 box that can no longer see my router or network after January's updates.

Catch 22. For the first time in my life, I'm bringing pc's with software issues to the shop (I've already tried everything I read about on the net with no luck). Apparently per the shop I'm going to use, this is not uncommon with Win 10.

It best be a one time thing; I can't afford a repair bill every time MS releases a lame batch of patches.

He mentioned in his post that he already ran Malwarebytes.



As a follow up to this - what other devices do you have on your network? The original version of Wi-Fi (802.11a and 802.11b) don't play well with newer versions on the same frequency range, and even if you have a newer router, if you have an old device on the network it can cause the entire network to step down to the slower speed.

If it's Windows 7 I suggest a re-install

I am plugged directly into the cable modem -- no wifi and yes, I do have windows 7. No router or network either. Just a direct plug in to comcast's cable.

I liked the comment about how I'm getting computer advice on the internet when I can't run it.

I can use it for a little while -- but then it just slows down and the suckage begins.

I'm petrified of taking it to a shop or reinstalling, because while I know how to use a computer, I'm not very technical about it.

I am assuming if you don't have a router, you likely don't have a hardware firewall. My mind I keeps going back to malware.

Probably, but not even malware bytes resolved the issue.

You may want to try a few other programs. MBAM is great stuff; but it doesn't catch everything.

Some of the other suggestions were also very good; I tend to have a malware security focus due to my background.

1. hook up a USB drive to your PC (thumb drive or some external hard drive)
2. Copy the entire contents of c:\users\(your name here) to that drive. This backs up all your "stuff". Not installed programs, but your pics, music, documents, etc.
3. Reinstall Windows
4. Reinstall your programs that you use
5. Copy your stuff back to the same folder.
6. See if this solves the problem. If not, steps 1-5 were a huge waste of time. But at least you probably cleaned up years of crud you built up in your system.

Jeff's right; unless you have a hardware failure, problem solved.

The one thing I would add due to my malware paranoia is:

5a: See how the system performs. If good, scan that USB drive with every malware/av trial program you can find (keeping in mind you may see some false positives, sigh) & than
5b: Copy your stuff back to the same folder.

Oh, just had a thought! Download a "live CD" of some Linux distro, boot to that, and see if you have slowness still. This is very easy to do and eliminates loads of troubleshooting. This is a good one, but Ubuntu and most others have their own. http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

That is an excellent idea.

Since you are running Windows 7 and are directly connected to your cable modem, I have one other suggestion, which might prove much easier than a total re-install of Windows.

Sign in as a different user on your computer, you might have a corrupt profile.

If there is a built-in "Administrator" account that will work fine. Otherwise, go to the "User Accounts" control panel, select "Manage another account" and then "Create a new account", and make up a name and password.

Sign in as the new user, and try to access the internet. If your speed is back to normal, then that means the problem was in your user profile and not the entire computer. This happened at my work recently, somebody's browser would take fifteen minutes or more to launch, so we backed up their folders for "Desktop", "Favorites", "My Documents", "My Pictures", and "My Videos". Then we created a new profile, and copied that data back, and their internet works great now.

A corrupt user profile used to happen a lot in Windows XP over the course of a few years, and I've seen it occur with Windows 7 also. Jeff's idea for total Windows reinstall is sound, but may not be necessary if the problem is only contained in your original user profile. Plus, you probably shouldn't copy over the entire contents of the "AppData" folder to a new profile or windows install, because that might bring the original problem with it.

I doubt that your problem is malware, but five years is a pretty good run for a computer these days. Eventually, you should look at upgrading to a new machine, but hopefully some of the ideas from everybody here will prolong yours for a while longer.

Also, I forgot to mention to eliminate the obvious factors:

1) Cable internet access speed tends to decrease during "peak" hours, due to increase of traffic. Is your problem evident during all times of day?

2) Some cable companies put a "cap" on the amount of data you can use for a month for internet, streaming, etc. Once you reach that limit, your access speed get throttled down to much slower. Check your cable bill to see if this is even a possibility.

Were the computer issues ever resolved?

I finally started up my new HP Pavilion laptop that I had bought for myself last Christmas from Costco, its just wonderful. Backlit screen, Windows 10, has a DVD burner, fast as f*ck with its 7th Gen Intel Core 2.5ghz processor, sometimes its best just to get a new computer when the old one becomes a major pain as my previous HP was becoming. Hated that thing.

This one is wonderful.