Now Here's A Real Stumper

So lately I've noticed a decrease in downloading speeds on my laptop, and today I finally have had enough. I went to speedtest.net and got these pathetic results 204 ms ping, 160 kb/s download and 131 kb/s upload. I could use dial up and get better speeds then this. So I figured there was something wrong with the router, or somebody was jacking my internet. I went on the main computer connected to the router, and got these results from speedtest 197 ms ping, 3000 kb/s download and 531 kb/s upload. This really pissed me off, so I went through the hassel of finding a friends laptop, brought him over, same location as my laptop, and ran the speedtest 177ms ping, 2987 kb/s download and 334 kb/s upload. I just recently cleared 25 gb off my hard drive, so i have plenty of disc space... the main computer has the same amount of ram as me, and my buddies has 1gb more... but that shohuldn't effect internet speed? Does anybody have any sort of idea what the hell could be wrong?!?!?!?!?

This should be moved to T-T-Tech Yourself.

Do you have cable internet? If so, when multiple people on the block also have cable and are accessing the internet at the same time, your speed will be slower as you all share the same connection.

Also, if you have Wifi set up w/o a password it's possible someone could be accessing your connection. Even with a password it can still be cracked, but I doubt it.

Computer specs have nothing to do with this.

And I wouldn't rely on speedtest.net as a definitive benchmark.

[quote2077909ddd="ajasax"]This should be moved to T-T-Tech Yourself.

Do you have cable internet? If so, when multiple people on the block also have cable and are accessing the internet at the same time, your speed will be slower as you all share the same connection.

Also, if you have Wifi set up w/o a password it's possible someone could be accessing your connection. Even with a password it can still be cracked, but I doubt it.

Computer specs have nothing to do with this.

And I wouldn't rely on speedtest.net as a definitive benchmark.[/quote2077909ddd]

I don't have a password on it, every time I try to set one up within an hour something happens were the password changes and I have to reset the router so I gave up on that. Don't have cable, just Embarq DSL I think, and I figured someone was accessing my connection, but since my buddy came over here and ran the speed test with 10x the results, I ruled that out.

I'm not worried about the exact speed or anything, but it's become quite obvious that there's something on my computer that's somehow blocking internet... but that doesn't make any sense to me... <200 kb/s is ridiuclous

are you getting the same results with internet explorer and firefox?
How old is your computer?
Did you see if any spyware was slowing down your laptop?

RAM does affect speed but there's no way your RAM is old enough that it would affect the internet speed that much. Old RAM = slower speed. But I highly doubt it's the RAM

It might also be that someone is using your internet and that when you brought your friend over, that someone wasn't freeloading off of you. Put a password on your router.

Sounds like a problem with your laptop specifically, or your wireless NIC. Have you done an virus/spyware scan lately?

But definitely lock down your router. If you live in any sort of densely populated area like a dorm or apartment building, or just a public area where people could be wardriving you, then you're providing free WiFi to anybody, including potentially pedophiles, spammers, and other such scumbags that can cause YOU problems when their activity is traced back to your router. Some jurisdictions have passed or are considering passing laws that hold you responsible for what happens on your unsecured WiFi hotspot. That fact people could be stealing your bandwidth could be the least of your worries. Just don't do it, there's not excuse to not take steps to properly secure a hotspot.

WiFi "passwords" or encryption keys do not change by themselves, nor expire after an hour, so I'm not sure what you're talking about there.

Computer specs have zero to do with your internet speeds.

I must be an idiot or something, because I can not get an encryption to actually work on my router. I go to the linksys page at 192.168.1.1 and get in there and put a password on it, and either my computer won't connect / ask me for password, or it will, and an hour later disconnects and says the password is wrong when it's correct. Either way it's not that someone is jacking my internet because I set up two laptops side by side and mine got the 150 kb/s and the other hit 3,000 kb/s. It's aggrevating. I installed a fresh copy of Windows XP and that didn't help one bit, I'm currently downloading an updated driver direct from Dell at 19 kb/s... I downloaded a few drivers on the other laptop at 350 kb/s...

[b619fdc63d9]Ruled Out[/b619fdc63d9]
Virus
Any software program
Wi-Fi thieft

Solutions
?????