Why is web browsing so slow?

iwb

Just today, I noticed that both IE and Netscape are criminally slow on my laptop. I tried my desktop machine on the same network and it seemed perfectly fine. that network is running on eircom residential dsl. I am now at the office on Netsource business dsl and the browsers are still very slow.
When I check email, the only other thing I can think of to test it, all seems fine as it goes through the process in a few seconds tops. It seems like latency on the browsers rather than bandwidth that's the problem. When I click on a link, the page changes immediately as always, but it stays blank for maybe 20 seconds and then the whole page appears at once.
I tried a download and I am getting the full 50KB/sec or 400kbps. When I go to somewhere like an ftp site using a browser, I can navigate the folders as quickly as if they were on my computer!
I have a strong feeling it is a local setting on the laptop but I don't know what to check.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Velcrow

Some points:

Seems like its not a browser problem since both ie and netscape are affected

You can turn off a setting " wait for all the page to download before showing " on both browsers

Is there a program taking your bandwidth in the background, windows autoupdate, a downloader or and not to be dramitic a virus???

hope this was of some help

iwb

Thanks for the reply. It isn't bandwidth. I can download at full speed. I agree that if both browsers are affected, it isn't likely that the problem is there but as I said, I can browse ftp sites at full speed with no latency at all.
Are there any global settings in Windows that might affect this?

Velcrow

Most global settings are in - settings - control panel - internet options - advanced tab

( xp, that is )

hostyle

Possibly a DNS problem. Are others having the same problem?

iwb

I was using Skype for a call for an hour or so and when I hung up, the machine blue screened. When I rebooted, everything is now fine. Reboots earlier didn't do anything so maybe something else was fixed but the blue screen seems to have fixed it:dunno:
Thanks for all the help. I hope it doesn't come back. It was worse than being on dialup.

richardo

It was worse than being on dialup

Nothing is worse than being on dialup :dunno:

iwb

After I posted that comment, I thought about it and it is only worse than being on dialup because I am not on dialup all the time. It is liveable even still to be on dialup until you use broadband for a while. Then, going back to dialup would be hell.
Sorry Richard for being nasty to you guys who have to live with dialup and have no choice at present, and crappy dialup at that.

spongebob

could be spyware ,install adaware and spybot search & destroy and run both to see and then remove

M

iwb

It isn't. I run them regularly but my subscription ZoneAlarm firewall seems to have weeded them all out. I almost never get a hit these days when I run them.
It was some very strange and funky thing that has just decided to fix itself after the blue screen episode.
Thanks for the advice though.

tomk

Originally posted by iwb
It was some very strange and funky thing that has just decided to fix itself after the blue screen episode.

Ah, the joys of Windoze.......!