[melgor]

ok will do but first may I ask you a question

your previous reference to "your partition that is not named" intrigued me

I cannot recall ever knowingly creating a partition (wouldn't know how unless instructed), would this have been created by Windows (not present in my other pc) or could it have been created by an "unknown" without my knowledge and could it therefore contain something which is causing my problems.

I hope you don't mind me asking, please advise whether to carry on with cleaning dns now.

thanks

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Most likely when you installed XP it would have asked you to use all the empty space or if you wanted to set the amount of space. I think by mistake you have done the latter. you can try to check and see if ther eis anything on it. It should show up under My computer.

[rshaffer61]

Most likely when you installed XP it would have asked you to use all the empty space or if you wanted to set the amount of space. I think by mistake you have done the latter. you can try to check and see if ther eis anything on it. It should show up under My computer.

[melgor]

thanks, I looked in My Computer but could only find local disc C and recovery disc D, there was nothing in the C folder with reference to a partition

I have successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache

Nothing appears to have changed, what is the next step please

[rshaffer61]

What browser do you use?

[melgor]

Firefox 99% of the time, Chrome and IE8 also installed but rarely used - all browsers current edition - problem occurs in all browsers

[rshaffer61]

OK time to do a hard reset on your mode\router.
Shutdown system, disconnect from modem\router. Disconnect incoming internet to modem\router.
Disconnect power from the same for 10 minutes.
Now reconnect everything and try.

[melgor]

Hi again and sorry for the delay in replying

I followed your instructions re doing a hard reset on the router, unfortunately no improvement however it occurred to me that I could have a faulty router so I arranged to borrow one from a friend (hence the delay) to test. Results still the same, very slow downloads and constant buffering on videos.

Anything else to try?

[rshaffer61]

Yep contact your ISP and have them test your signal. They need to test for not only bandwidth but also line noise and strength.
Since the issue is cross browser platform we need to look at the connection first.

[rshaffer61]

Another suggestion that has been offered.

Clear out all the old restore points and create a new one and then test to see if restore will now work.

[melgor]

re: restore points

all my restore points were wiped out a few days ago when we first ran TFC, since then Windows has created a new restore point 2 days ago when I removed IObit

I tried restoring to this point and was successful but it made no difference to my download and video problems, have now reversed the restore.

I cannot see any way of artificially creating a restore point to a date prior to when my troubles started as Windows automatically inserts the current date/time when it creates a restore point.

re testing the signal

I will contact my ISP and inform you as soon as I have their answer

Thanks for your patience

[rshaffer61]

Ok thank you and please let me know what your ISP said.

[melgor]

My sincere apologies for the delay, I'm almost around the proverbial bend trying to get the info you want from my ISP, they may be the biggest in the UK but they also deserve their reputation as being the worst for support.

After 2 fruitless days all I've managed to gleen from them is that my line is working ok and the signal strength is good (should be I literally live 400 yards from the servers) The girl on the other end of the telephone line was obviously reading from a script because she was unable to help at all regarding line noise.

I have independently done some speed tests, the results are below:

As I have previously mentioned I have 2 desktops both linking to the same ISP through the same router. The one I use to do most of my work and with the most programs installled (pc A) is the one I am having the problems with, this is hard wired to the router. The second (pc B) has very few programs installed, is used mainly for research or cross checking, has absolutely no problems, and has a wireless connection to the router.

I have already confessed to not being particularly clever with the technical aspects of computers but I just cannot get my head round why one pc should be good for downloads and viewing videos and the other bad when they both share the same ISP and router connection to the ISP, unless there is something in pc A which is not present in pc B and which is causing a conflict of sorts, or the fact that the good pc has a wireless connection whilst the bad one is hard wired (I've checked the ethernet cable and this is ok).

Anyway the speed test results I got are as follows, hope they are of help, results are average of 3 tests on each browser on each pc. The only other thing I would mention is that Firefox always loaded up the test quickly whereas Chrome was sometimes a bit slower but IE always seemed to be slow.

on both computers the router was always showing as 18.4mb and the upload was virtually static at around 0.82mbps

on pc A (bad one) the download was around 0.15mbps but on pc B (good one) it was about 2.2mbps, one test even showed 3.68mbps.

Hope the above gives you food for thought and I would mention one other thing I have done since my last post. I read somewhere on the net that some people had experienced problems with IE8, and as I very seldom use IE I decided to uninstall this in the hope that it might just resolve my problem - regrettably it did not. By the way MS don't exactly make it easy to uninstall, took a lot of searching before I found their uninstall instructions.

Thanks again
Gordon

[rshaffer61]

Let me ask are they both hooked up at the same time? What happens if you shut down PCB, then reboot PCA and try the internet? Does the speed then increase?

[melgor]

Quite often I only have PC A running.

I opened both pcs then closed down PCB, then rebooted PCA and ran test 4 times, results below

test 1 download 0.31mbps - upload 0.88 mbps
2 0.17 0.67
3 0.43 0.87
4 0.09 0.47

last test a few minutes ago when internet in uk probably quite busy

[rshaffer61]

OK what is the age difference between the systems?
Do you know if the nic in PX a is a 10\100 Base T or just a 10 Base T?