Really slow / faulty browsing

[liffy99]

A couple of weeks ago I noticed a savage slow down in web surfing (XP Professional, Firefox 3.0.3). What seems to be happening is that I can quickly get to the homepage of a website, or use Google search quite normally, but then have real trouble trying to the next level (are these called layers ?). Typically the "outline" of the web page will show, often with a graphic or two, but go no further - it just doesn't finish populating.

The symptoms are that the loading bar (green blocks on the rhs of the screen) moves with glacial slowness and, more often than not, the process just times out. Sometimes I can get to another level after waiting a couple of minutes, and very occasionally all seems to work normally.

I've tried resetting the router, clearing out history, temp files, cookies etc - all to no avail. Using a laptop on the wireless network (the PC with the problem is cabled) has no such problems.

Looking at Task manager I don't really know what should be there and what shouldn't (how do I capture the list shown on TM - there's no print or select option). Broadband speeds vary but range betwwen 500k and 2mb.

I don't recall doing anything that coincides with the slowdown in surfing, though there are sure to have been some automatic updates. The same thing happens with Internet Explorer by the way.

Can anyone help ?

PC is AMD dual core 3000 with 2 Gb RAM.

[w1che]

Have you cleaned up your drives lately. Got the junk files off. Run all of your virus & adware scans?

[Miz]

See if one of the sites you know loads slowly or not at all will load correctly if you add it to IE's "Trusted Sites." Instructions on how to do that are on this page.

If that works, indicating it could be an ActiveX problem, read through this Microsoft Article for a possible solution.

It could also be IE's security settings are set too high. Try lowering that setting to Medium or lower.

It could also be some online security software you have installed is either doing its job badly or you have more than one trying to do the same job (two antivirus, two antispyware, etc.). Shut down or uninstall any that are duplicating efforts to see if that helps.

[liffy99]

I'm using Firefox, not IE.
I've made no changes to Firefox settings - so why should surfing have becomedrastically worse ?
Trusted programmes are all on Firefox with ? or tick - not sure how I can check individual site settings.
Thanks

[Miz]

Sorry, I didn't read your original post carefully enough so missed the part about Firefox.

Have you tried IE to see if it's got the same slow surfing problem? If it does, the problem is not just with Firefox.

To eliminate the wireless part of the equation as a suspect, try connecting to the router with a cable.

If the wireless connection proves not to be the problem, see if surfing is also slow with IE. If so and if you don't have either a file sharing or several internet security programs running, malware becomes a prime suspect.

[Broni]

Try some basics, first...

Go Start>Run (Start search in Vista), type in:
cmd
Click OK.

In Command Prompt window, type in following commands, and hit Enter after each one:
ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /registerdns
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew

Restart computer.

If that doesn't work...
Go Start>Run (Start search in Vista), type in:
cmd
Click OK.

At Command Prompt, type in:
netsh int ip reset reset.log
Hit Enter.
Type in:
netsh winsock reset catalog
Hit Enter.

Restart computer.


If that doesn't work...
Download, install, and run WinSockFix: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/N...nSockFix.shtml
Restart computer, and check again.