Slow Internet downloads on parts of XP network
- From: Rob <Rob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 20:15:15 GMT
I hope this is the appropriate group for this question. If not, please
could somebody advise a more suitable group.
I have a home network comprising of 3 PC's running XP Home Edition.
The network is via a Linksys BEFSR41 V3 Router. Internet is 10MBit
via an ISP supplied Cable Modem. This network has been in place and
running for around 12 months.
The problem I have is that downloading files from the Internet on two
of the PC's is vastly slower than it should be, at anywhere between
15kbs and 100kbs (sometimes fluctuating during a download ) The third
PC downloads just fine at a little over 1 megabyte per second. Various
online and offline Broadband speed tests also give the same peculiar
results. Identical large files downloaded from ATi and Creative Labs
confirm this discrepancy too.
The specs of the PC's are:
First "slow downloading" PC:
P4 3.0GHZ, 3GB PC3200 DDR, 2 x 200 SATA Drives (no RAID) ATi AIW
X1800XL, Realtek RTL8139 PCI Ethernet NIC (running in Auto Mode) XP
Home Edition SP2 (NTFS)
Second "slow downloading" PC:
AMD XP2100, 1GB PC2700 DDR, 1 x 120GB EIDE & 1 x 80GB EIDE, ATi AIW
9800 Pro SE, Realtek RTL8139 PCI Ethernet NIC (running in Auto Mode)
XP Home Edition SP2 (NTFS)
Third PC (which downloads at >1MB sec)
P3 800MHZ, 512MB PC133 RAM, 1 x 80MB EIDE & 1 x 40MB EIDE, GeForce 2
GTS, Realtek RTL8139 PCI Ethernet NIC (running in Auto Mode), XP Home
Edition SP2 (FAT32) & Windows ME (FAT32) on a dual boot on the 40GB
drive.
Things that I have tried in an attempt to solve this bizarre problem:
1.) A different router. No change.
2.) Using the NIC from the "fast" PC in one of the other PC's. No
change
3.) Using the Ethernet cable from the "fast" PC on one of the others.
No change.
4.) Removing the "fast" PC from the network. No change.
5.) Connecting either of the "slow" PC's directly to the Cable Modem
(after powering it down and removing from the router). No change
At some point in the past I have had maximum download speeds on all
the PC's from sites that are able to provide those speeds. I am pretty
sure though that this has arisen before but that I have put it down to
my ISP. So, it may be intermittent but has now been this way for at
least 7 days.
All 3 PC's have the same Antivirus package, have no firewalls
installed (XP FW is off on all) and have been scanned for Viruses and
spyware endlessly. There is no bandwidth limiting or bandwidth sharing
software on any of the PC's. There are no suspicious processes running
on any of the PC's either.
I tried to look at this problem from the angle of what is different in
that one PC that downloads at maximum speed. The only things that are
obviously different are that the two "slow" PC's have All In Wonder
cards in them (both recently installed) and that the "fast" PC is
running on FAT32.
I can't imagine that the ATi cards have anything to do with it (but
who knows).
I'm leaning towards it being something to do with FAT32 vs NTFS. My
suspicion is fueled even further by the fact that transferring files
between the two NTFS PC's is insanely slow, but that transferring
*from* either of the NTFS PC's to the FAT32 is infinitely faster.
Although I might add that even that is susceptible to wildly
fluctuating speeds during transfer at times also.
This problem is way outside of my experience and I'm absolutely
stumped. So, any help in solving this issue, or even isolating the
cause would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
--
Rob
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