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Internet slow


steve_b_wales
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My internet is now slower that usual. On the tower, next to the on/off button, there's a little white dot of a light that's flashing erratically. Last time it did this, my daughter did something on the computer that stopped it, and the internet signal improved. I can't get hold of her at the moment, because of lockdown etc. 

Any idea on what she did?

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Steve, the little white dot that is flashing is very likely hard disk drive activity.

It could be the your PC is downloading updates in the background that is taking up bandwidth, but more than likely the performance of the Internet in being slow is actually just your PC running slower.

Every PC will use what is called virtual memory, where it uses the hard disk drive to store short term bits of information that it needs to process, Internet browsers can be particualrly heavy on this sort of approach, especially on web pages that are very dynamic, think Facebook or Instagram or YouTube.

First option is a quick system restart, that will flush out any cached memory and make sure no background tasks are running.

Also make sure that you dont have lots of applications or webpages open at the same time as this consumes memory and increases the amount of virtual memory that is used.

Also make sure that your anti-virus software isn't doing a system scan as that also has a big impact on disk usage.

If the problem persists longer term then you can start to look at what services are maybe starting automatically and turn those off so they dont hog resource.  And you can use other tools to make sure that everything is optimised.

Of course it might just be an Internet performance issue on your exchange.

 

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  • By far the simplest way for you is to UNPLUG ( not switch off ) the electric to your router wait 10 mins and plug it back in, this should clear a lot of the above ideas for you and may also complete any updates you need.
  • Restart your computer, if you don't know how to do it then just hold down the power button for over 5 seconds until the screen goes off
  • Phone your broadband provider or get them via online chat help but do the above first as they will need you to do it anyway; it's what you pay for
  • The rest is slightly more complex and you may need to befriend a local teenager to help
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Theres a Web page you can go to thats your routers admin page, it will tell you how many and what devices are connected to your router. Theres all ways more than you think, beavering away in the background, using band width.

From memory they usually start www.169........... but not sure after that.

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18 hours ago, steve_b_wales said:

Thanks for all the advice. I'll check it out again later. My internet speed provided by SKY has never been fast, but for some reason, it's been terrible the last few days.

We also have sky and I don’t think I will be renewing. 
we are a fair way from an exchange (miles) and with BT we never really had issues. 
Sky is forever running slow and dropping out. 

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1 hour ago, ph5172 said:

We also have sky and I don’t think I will be renewing. 
we are a fair way from an exchange (miles) and with BT we never really had issues. 
Sky is forever running slow and dropping out. 

SKY sent me a signal booster but I still had/have problems. They checked the speed from their end to the exchange, and it was good, but from there to my home, terrible. We will (one day) have fibre optic cables laid in our area.

18 hours ago, garygreengrass said:

Do a broadband speed test, Just type broadband speed test into your browser and one will come up then you can contact sky if its not the speed you should be getting.

I'll try this later, thanks.

18 hours ago, Shearwater said:
  • By far the simplest way for you is to UNPLUG ( not switch off ) the electric to your router wait 10 mins and plug it back in, this should clear a lot of the above ideas for you and may also complete any updates you need.
  • Restart your computer, if you don't know how to do it then just hold down the power button for over 5 seconds until the screen goes off
  • Phone your broadband provider or get them via online chat help but do the above first as they will need you to do it anyway; it's what you pay for
  • The rest is slightly more complex and you may need to befriend a local teenager to help

Thanks. I'll do this later.

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4 hours ago, steve_b_wales said:

SKY sent me a signal booster but I still had/have problems. They checked the speed from their end to the exchange, and it was good, but from there to my home, terrible. We will (one day) have fibre optic cables laid in our area.

I'll try this later, thanks.

Thanks. I'll do this later.

We are the same. Fibre to the cabinet then copper to the house. 
 

Estimated speeds for the non fibre package are 2mbps 

fibre gives us 40mbs but to the exchange it’s 100. 
 

it’s the distance from the exchange is the issue. 
we also have stone walls that don’t help issues on wifi

 

i did notice any issues appear to be magnified with sky. I’m convinced it wasn’t half as bad with BT

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44 minutes ago, ph5172 said:

We are the same. Fibre to the cabinet then copper to the house. 
 

Estimated speeds for the non fibre package are 2mbps 

fibre gives us 40mbs but to the exchange it’s 100. 
 

it’s the distance from the exchange is the issue. 
we also have stone walls that don’t help issues on wifi

 

i did notice any issues appear to be magnified with sky. I’m convinced it wasn’t half as bad with BT

Same here. A good distance from the exchange, and solid stone walls (my house is 200 yr old)

 

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