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Ok so I moved into college about five days ago and everything has been going well other than this internet. My dorm doesn't allow a wireless connection so I connected my new laptop to the ethernet port in the wall.

The web-browsing works great and the downloading is amazing (about 1mbps/sec). That, however, is all that works. Whenever I try to play any online games (even old ones that worked well on 56k) or sign onto any program that uses the internet (AIM, Steam, Poker, etc) it is EXTREMELY slow IF I can even get on. Also when I am on sites like youtube.com the videos take minutes and even hours to load on some of them.

Now this is absolutely driving me mad. My roommates internet works just fine so I tried switching the ethernet ports, that did nothing, I tried switching ethernet cables, and that also did nothing. This is telling me that it has something to do with my computer.

Under task manager -> Networking my local area connection is running at 0.03% of 10Mbps. That is what seems to be the problem right there. I remember my cable connection at home ran at like 80% of whatever it was. Also when I log onto games like WoW it has a ping of 24,000. Yet when I open a CMD window and do a ping google.com it has great results.

It is almost as if I have something running on my computer that is chugging up all of my bandwidth (trust me I've checked everywhere, there is nothing).

I didn't bother contacting anyone here on campus because I doubt it has anything to do with them, like I said my roommates internet works great. The only thing I can think of is that maybe the network card in here is bad. Back at home I always used wireless so I've never tested the networking part of my laptop.

I'm sorry this turned out long but could someone please help before I start throwing things.

Hi Watsonator - Welcome to PCHF!

It could be any number of things. First try disabling Windows Firewall if you have it running.

Also when you try to play online games sometimes its better to disable your Antivirus. Considering your just playing the game and not browsing the net this wont put you at risk as long as you re-enable it straight afterwards.

When you experience these extreme slow downs if you look in task manager under processes can you see which process seems to taking a lot of the cpu? If so let us know in your next post.

Also if you could give us your pc specs that would help too. Up the top of this page you'll see UserCP. Click that then select Edit Options on the left. About 1/2 way down you'll see System Specs - change it to Yes and complete as much of the information as you can. If you need any help with this - please let me know.

I don't really want to fill in the User info because this is my laptop and I'd rather put my real PC in there but I'll go ahead and list the spec of this current laptop-

Gateway P-6831FX Gaming Laptop

-Intel Core 2 Duo 5450 CPU 1.67 GHz
-3 GB DDR2 RAM
-250 GB HDD 5400 rpm
-Nvidia GeForce 8800M GTS 512 MB GDDR3
-17" 1440x900 display
-Windows Vista Home Premium

I tried disabling firewalls and virus protection, it didn't help any. My friend has this exact some notebook and he can't play games either and he lives across campus. Yet my one roomate is right next to me and can play whatever he wants (different laptop of course).

Under processes, Desktop Window Manager and Windows Explorer are taking up the most CPU.

Which of the 2 processes are using the most CPU? Explorer or DWM?

DWM is the most at 44,000k followed by Explorer at 23,000k.

If I have up Internet Explorer it takes up the most at like 74,000k.

bump

You can try disabling DWM to see if it helps.

Press CTRL+SHIFT+F9 to disable it. See if your games improve. To reenable DWM press CTRL+SHIFT+F9 again.

Do you have any 3rd party Firewall installed on the pc? If so try disabling it while you play. Also try disabling Windows Firewall as well if you have it running.