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23 comments

1 Tiny Alien Kitties are Watching You  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 11:09:31am

To test your upload and download speed use this.

Do not click on the registry cleaner or windows error diagnoses ads on there, just do the speed test. I have used them for years and it is not a harmful site, although I cannot say the same for their advertisers.

2 Obdicut  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 11:14:24am

Your PC is quite obsolete.

What videocard do you have?

3 garhighway  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 11:26:06am

I'll give the speed test a try.

How do I determine what video card I have?

4 Tiny Alien Kitties are Watching You  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 11:28:54am

re: #2 Obdicut

Your PC is quite obsolete.

What videocard do you have?

Card? It is a 2002 era H.P. so it is probably running on the NVIDIA N-force chipset that came with it stock.

5 Lord Baron Viscount Duke Earl Count Planckton  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 11:29:12am

re: #3 garhighway

One possible way: go to "Run..." in your "Start" menu and type dxdiag (followed by Enter or OK).

6 Randall Gross  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 11:33:34am

Everyone is going to tell you that your computer is obsolete... but it's only obsolete when it no longer meets your needs. That in mind, you can buy a reconditioned P4 that beats the snot out of yours for under 200 bucks at Microcenter if you aren't gaming or doing resource intensive ops with your existing computer.

If you are concerned about Operating System obsolescence (XP goes off support sometime in the nearer term future) then you can look at the higher end of the low price spectrum at 300-500 bucks.

For DSL testing I recommend DSLreports.com since they have a suite of tests you can run, as well as some tweaking tools.

For just speedtests, try Speedtest.net but pick a test server that's close so you get a true read.

7 garhighway  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 11:58:23am

So I ran the speed test and it said my download speed was 1.3 Mbps.

Is that an acceptable outcome?

8 Randall Gross  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 12:12:23pm

re: #7 garhighway

That's a subjective question dependent on what are you paying for - e.g. if you are paying for 1.5 mbps download, and something less than that for upload (asymetric DSL,) then this is within acceptable tolerance. Compared to the rest of world you are below average (at a 9.9 mbps average) but that's not terrible as US speeds go. *yes -- we are behind the curve for speed, bandwidth, and price compared to the rest of the world because of so many entrenched legacy interests in Washington...

9 garhighway  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 12:13:00pm

re: #7 garhighway

So I ran the speed test and it said my download speed was 1.3 Mbps.

Is that an acceptable outcome?

I also did one of those "maxmyspeed" deals which feels kind of scammy.

10 garhighway  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 12:13:52pm

re: #8 Thanos

That's a subjective question dependent on what are you paying for - e.g. if you are paying for 1.5 mbps download, and something less than that for upload (asymetric DSL,) then this is within acceptable tolerance. Compared to the rest of world you are below average (at a 9.9 mbps average) but that's not terrible as US speeds go. *yes -- we are behind the curve for speed, bandwidth, and price compared to the rest of the world because of so many entrenched legacy interests in Washington...

I just have garden-variety residential DSL, if there is such a thing.

11 Randall Gross  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 12:15:32pm

re: #9 garhighway

I also did one of those "maxmyspeed" deals which feels kind of scammy.

I wouldn't do that. The best deal going right (cost vs speed) now is usually cable modem of some sort rather than DSL if you can get it. I still pay about triple what other people in other countries are paying and I get only a third of their speed. (I use the upper tier because I work from home)

12 garhighway  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 12:19:36pm

re: #11 Thanos

I wouldn't do that. The best deal going right (cost vs speed) now is usually cable modem of some sort rather than DSL if you can get it. I still pay about triple what other people in other countries are paying and I get only a third of their speed. (I use the upper tier because I work from home)

I suppose I could convert to the Time Warner cable deal, but my wife's e-mail is through Verizon, and moving from them would be a mess.

13 Randall Gross  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 12:33:18pm

re: #12 garhighway

I suppose I could convert to the Time Warner cable deal, but my wife's e-mail is through Verizon, and moving from them would be a mess.

You can usually set forwarding from the old address.

14 garhighway  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 12:42:57pm

re: #13 Thanos

You can usually set forwarding from the old address.

I'm feeling like this is more about my PC than it is Verizon. Or is 1.3M so slow that I would notice it in ordinary browsing?

15 emcesq  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 3:47:49pm

Next I would take a look at the Task Manager and see what processes are running. You can expand the header to I/O reads and writes. Google the processes with the higher traffic. You are likely to be amazed how much stuff is running.

Virus scanners take the system to its knees. On my 2000+ era P4 (940MHz), I load Defender, let it do its detailed scan, run it for a few days and uninstall it.

I would also make more room on the disk by deleting the entire ..
temp directory and all internet temp files (or let system cleanup do that) to create sufficient space for the swap file. Check the swap file setting (read up on what is recommended, I use something like 5x native memory size).

I assume you have Win-XP which does not support the newest IE. I would use Chrome which tends to load web pages noticeably faster (including LGF).

All said, do not expect to watch movies on this hardware without stuttering.

Al the best!

16 Obdicut  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 4:02:00pm

re: #14 garhighway

1.3 m is fast enough.

The reason I asked about your graphics card is when browsing sites with flash and other animations and high-res pictures and stuff, it definitely matters.

But yeah, emcesq's suggestions are good.

Get any random 16 year old kid who likes computers to give it a once-over.

17 andres  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 4:10:32pm

I think the first question should be, what do you do most on your computer?

Most of the tips you've gotten here are very good and useful.

Also, after deleting the temporary files, do defrag the hard drive. It can do wonders.

18 andres  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 4:13:23pm

Also, this link by Black Viper should help you decide what services to disable.

19 Randall Gross  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 6:03:06pm

Ditto on deleting temp files & defragging the hard drive. For ordinary, mostly text browsing of the internet your PC and connection should be fine. If you are trying to do any PVP in an MMORPG you are going to be the dead guy however.

When you do the temp file cleanage do not forget to clean the temp files for the browser you use. If you clear your cookies (recommended) then you are going to have to re log in at every site you hit, and the first time you return to sites it will take a bit longer but after that you should be fine. I recommend dropping cookies because you might have a tracking cookie that causes you to proxy through third party or something. Kill any browser addons or extensions that you don't use or recognize as well. (if unsure of the validity you can google the name and look for a tech forum that discusses it. )

20 Randall Gross  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 6:06:06pm

What else? Hrmm. Update Adobe Flash, Adobe reader, and make sure to turn off the "on all the time" adobe reader utility.
If you don't use a pad or other writing enabled device with your computer make sure that the utility for that is shut off, it will suck major resource sometimes if you don't.
Update Java, update Adobe Air if you use it.

21 Randall Gross  Sat, Sep 24, 2011 6:08:41pm

ahh, one more thing: if nothing above works then try resetting your network interface card to default state & rebooting. You shouldn't mess with it unless you know what you are doing however, so make that last resort.

22 garhighway  Sun, Sep 25, 2011 9:00:30am

re: #15 emcesq

Next I would take a look at the Task Manager and see what processes are running. You can expand the header to I/O reads and writes. Google the processes with the higher traffic. You are likely to be amazed how much stuff is running.

Virus scanners take the system to its knees. On my 2000+ era P4 (940MHz), I load Defender, let it do its detailed scan, run it for a few days and uninstall it.

I would also make more room on the disk by deleting the entire ..
temp directory and all internet temp files (or let system cleanup do that) to create sufficient space for the swap file. Check the swap file setting (read up on what is recommended, I use something like 5x native memory size).

I assume you have Win-XP which does not support the newest IE. I would use Chrome which tends to load web pages noticeably faster (including LGF).

All said, do not expect to watch movies on this hardware without stuttering.

Al the best!

I appreciate the advice. I have become a big fan of task manager, and use it religiously. What I mainly observe is that Explorer is messy.

It's not like we are power users or anything. It is just frustrating to have explorer lock up or take forever to load.

I'm thinking new hardware, and since I don't want to do this again for a long time, I am thinking an Intel i7 machine with a lot of memory is the way to go. Thoughts?

23 garhighway  Mon, Sep 26, 2011 5:54:05am

Just for grins I ran the speedtest thing from work: they have 80Mbps speeds!

Wowza.


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