If anyone else here has cable for internet, I wonder if you have this problem.

For some reason, my internet is slow as hell. I mean when I download things the download speed is like 9kbs or 10kbs at its fastest. I mean before it would be in the norm 150-350kbs and for some reason over the last 4 or 5 months its been slow as hell.

I've been wondering maybe if it is the router that I have that I bought from the cable company? I actually had that problem before, I returned the router for a new one, and with the new one (the one I currently am using) the net was faster. But now again its incredibly slow. I have a brand new computer and it's still doing this as it was on my old one. Do routers wear out or something? Do I need to go to the store and buy a new one?

Yes, they do wear out, but that's not likely the problem. First, try shutting down your computer, and unplugging your router and cable modem from the wall for about a minute. Plug back in, and start computer. This cycles your modem. Not sure exactly what it does, but it works for me usually.

If that does not work, might want to run Adaware, Spybot or something like that to make sure that nothing is running in the background eating up your connection.

If none of that works, call your cable company. Your paying for it, just as well have them walk you through it.

You may have to powercycle your modem... reboot / reconfigure it. Call your cable company and ask them if they've done anything that would require you to do this. If not, you might want to do it anyways. Have them walk you through the setup if that's required.

Like the above you could be infeced...take a look at your processes... see if there's a lot of activity when your not on the net. Check out your network activity with your cable modem (just look at the icon if it's there... see if it's constantly running, not off or blinking when you don't have the internet explorer open)...

When I run into this problem I reset the modem and router(Usually I do it once a week anyway) and reboot the computer and everything is good. Once in a while my cable co. or ISP is doing service work which causes this. My ISP has a spot on their site to see when service work or repairs are being done and in what areas.