Check your internet speed
You can check your internet connection by hover your mouse pointer over the internet connection icon in the bottom right hand corner of your screen. A pop up window will display your internet connection. You can also click the icon to launch the Properties window.
The graphic shows a connection that is using a wireless router so in addition to your internet speed, log on duration and status, you will also see the signal strength. You can get more accurate test by using online broad band test sites. If you are getting 80% of your ISP advertised speed, You are in good shape. There is usually a standard loss of 10-20% speed due to line quality. So if your are supposed be getting 1.5mbs and your internet speed runs around 1.25mbs, you have a good connection.
4 Steps to Increase A Slow Internet Connection
STEP 1: REDUCE THE WEB CACHE
First step in speeding up your slow internet connection to tweak your internet options. To launch the internet options utility follow the the direction below:
1.Click Start
2. Click Control Panel
3. Double Click Internet Options
4. Click Settings under Browsing History
The task here is to make your web cache as small as possible. The less disk space your reserve for your temporary files is less data that your computer needs to search through. This action can easily award you a faster connection on the net.
5. Reduce the Disk Space to Use to the minimum recommended amount or as low as your desire.
STEP 2: CLEAR TEMP FILES
Deleting your web cache is a good way to speed up a slow internet connection. These files take up valuable resources that could be used to for a better net surfing experience. Remember that while you are online many files in the web cache are active. Cookies are loaded in your browsers and constantly update themselves. Also your computer will search through the temp files to match the latest version of a web page. So, by clearing the web cache you cut down on the work your PC needs to do thus speeding up your slow internet connection. Remember to shutdown the browser when deleting the cache. Because what files are open will not be deleted. Here how to delete your temporary internet files.
Manual steps to erase your temporary internet files.
1. Quit Internet Explorer, Firefox, or any other web browser
2. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click Internet Options.
3. On the General tab, click Delete Files under Temporary Internet Files.
4. In the Delete Files dialog box, click to select the Delete all offline content check box , and then click OK.
5. Click OK.
If you prefer not to delete all the files you can selective search each category and delete. The temporary files are broken up into six categories. To view your internet files follow the steps below:
In Internet Explorer
1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Choose Internet Options from the Tools menu.
3. Click the General, Under Temporary Internet Files, Click Settings.
4.Click View Files
5. Delete selected files
The goal here is to cut down on the files your computer needs to search through. Alternate methods can be used to clear the web cache and other unnecessary data.
STEP 3: SPEED UP WEB PAGES
One of the biggest culprit of slow internet connections. Is your web browser's settings. When you log on to a web page, your computer is assaulted with data it needs to organize and present in an orderly manner. This information takes time to load. So, the more information the longer it takes to load. However you tweak a number of settings to decrease the time it takes to load a web page. By reducing the amount of animation and scripts. You can see drastic increases in your internet surfing.
1.Click Start
2. Click Control Panel
3. Double Click Internet Options
4. Click Settings
5. Scroll down to Multimedia.
6. You can reduce the options in order to increase speed at which web pages are loaded.
By restricting your browser to display only text is the fastest option.
STEP 4: CONTROL YOUR ANTIVIRUS
A slow internet connection is often a software related problem and not the fault of your ISP. Buying more bandwidth is always going to help. Slow down is a normal result of having security software like an anitvirus on your computer. The software must constantly update it files and signatures. All this information is logged in your computer. The majority of the information is placed in your registry.
When your antivirus performs a scan. It produces a log. This log can be up to 100 megabytes of information each. The registry holds all this info. The addition of the info is not the major problem. Its that the information is placed in many places in your registry. This causes fragmentation of files. Your computer's operating system must search through the massive files in the registry constantly. If the registry is error-filled, fragmented, or bloated with unnecessary and duplicate files, you will have major slowdown. Organize and keep it maintained, the problem will most likely be solved. You can scan to see the condition of your registry and see what resources you can unlock resources.
Also you should try to see what processes are loaded when your computer starts. Often the antivirus will check your email, scan, and even update at the same time. This may be occurring everytime you start up your PC. These acts can last as long as 3 hours. They may be running silently in the background without your knowledge. Maintain them by following the directions below or by tweaking the settings in your antivirus:
1. Open your Start menu.
2. Click Run
3. In the command screen type msconfig.exe
4. In the system configuration utility,click either service or startup
tab5. Uncheck all programs that you dont want to load win the antivirus is starting
6. Click OK.
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