Windows Vista Internet speeds dropped with no apparent cause

I got a new computer a few months ago and did a clean install of Vista. Everything was working great until one day a few weeks later my Internet speeds dropped by more than half. I did everything I could think of: checked for spyware, viruses, disabled IPv6, etc. but nothing helped.

Feeling frustrated, I put XP on the machine because I noticed our laptop was running XP and still getting normal speeds.

After a few weeks of XP, I started to miss Vista. So I decided to give it another try. I installed it a few days ago and it's been running great... until today.

Once again with no apparent cause, my Internet speeds have been reduced by more than half. I just finished searching for spyware and viruses, and again, nothing.

Even my local connections (to the router, for example) seem to been exceedingly slow (I'm on a wireless network). The latest thing I installed was the Xvid codec, but while I'm sure it has nothing to do with it, I uninstalled it anyway (during the first run with Vista, I installed Xvid almost immediately and everything ran fine for weeks--that's why I think Xvid is innocent).

I've checked for updates to my wireless card, but I've got the latest (it's a Belkin card, by the way). If it comes to it, I'll get a different card and throw it in there. But this seems software releated.

I guess I should note that my other computer runs just fine on the network with full speeds. Oh, and last time I also tried doing system restores to previous states, but it didn't work, either.

Does anyone have any ideas??

 

Hi, and welcome to the BBS,
Try disabling the firewall for a short time. If the firewall is blocking a program that wants to connect to the internet, that may cause the slowdown. Check through the list of "Exceptions ", if there appears to be legitimate programs that are being blocked, put a checkmark in the box to make it an exception.

If you can, try posting the list here if you think you need help.

Matt

 

Thanks for the welcome and response.

Here is a picture of the exceptions. I don't think there is anything that is being blocked that needs to be unblocked, but I'm not 100% sure.

I disabled IPv6 again yesterday, and things seem to be generally better. However, there are still times when I do a speed test and it will be terribly slow for long periods of time, and other times it'll be normal for long periods of time. So disabling the firewall and testing will prove difficult. I'll have to catch it in one of the "slow moods. "

 

I can now confirm the firewall being on/off makes no difference, and the slowness applies for all applications.

 

I swapped wireless network cards, and I think that fixed it.

It's kind of funny--I bought the Belkin card because this Linksys card gave me problems on my old computer. On the new computer, the situation seems to have reversed.

If there are more problems, I'll post again.