A common problem I hear throughout my week is “My computer is slow.” I finally learned to ask, “Is your computer slow, or is your Internet slow?” The computer user usually pauses, thinks and often responds that it is his or her Internet that is slow; not the computer.
When I sit down at a client’s computer, I can quickly determine the health of a computer based on how quickly I can perform simple tasks like checking background processes, determining how current and what security products are being used, free hard drive space, and how much RAM is installed on the machine. Generally speaking, if a computer was bought any time after 2003, it is probably fast enough for email, Internet, word processing, digital photography, and other basic uses. If all goes well during these probes, I know the computer is doing pretty well, and it’s time to check out the Internet.
Internet speed starts with the Internet connection. The fastest connections available in the United States are fiber optic, followed by cable, cellular wireless, DSL, and finally satellite. You can test your Internet speed by going to PC Pitstop or SpeedTest.net. If your download speed isn’t at least 1.2 megabits per second (1200 kbps), you have a slow Internet connection. Online video playback will be choppy, downloading large emails will be slow, and some web sites will load slowly.
Note, too, that high speed Internet can and will slow down as more people jump online at the same time. You might find that your cable connection is slower in the evening hours than during the day…this is because more people are sharing that connection at that time. And with more and more people watching and uploading video online than ever before, our Internet speeds are stressed much more than just a few years ago.
Use these tests to make sure that you are getting near the advertised speed from your Internet provider. If not, you might want to check with them to make sure that there is nothing wrong with your connection from them. Make sure to follow these other recommendations, however, before making the call to make sure the problem doesn’t reside on your end.
No matter what your Internet speed is, you can maximize it by using a faster, safer browser like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. You can also make your Internet (and computer) faster by using a leaner, meaner, yet strong security product like AVG or Microsoft Security Essentials.
Also, your computer and Internet can run faster if you use the free CCleaner utility to keep the computer saw dust (behind the scenes files that get created but not purged) under control.
The next time you think that your computer is getting slow…ask yourself if it is the Internet or the computer itself that is slow. Chances are your computer functions fine, but the Internet is slow.
Who is your Internet provider and what speeds did the speed test yield for you? Are they fast enough for you?
Very nice post! In my opinion, though every computer will become slow, there are still some ways that we can do to fix a slow computer.
Good article Rick. Bob and I have both been discussing how slow our computers lately. Thanks for the tip on checking it out to find the real reason.
You are welcome…thanks for the comment Diana!
thanks rick for sharing the ways to fix a slow computer….. All points are easy to understand ….. thnks agn
Thanks for the Great Article!!! I have been trying to figure out my moms computer for quite sometime and this helped last night GREATLY!!!!! I was caught up thinking the computer had a worm and all. This article relieved alot of stress and I really appreciate it. My Mothers computer is now faster than ever on the internet.
I have a few questions:
Has anyone ever tried TVNeto.com?
Is it really free?
Is the d/l worthwhile?
I’m interested in movies. Is there a good selection?
Thanx much…
Have not heard of this service, but will check it out a little further. I’m always leary, however, of adding toolbars to my browser…from anyone.
Thanx Rick. I figured if anyone would be familiar with the site, it would be you. I suppose any of those type of sites, something must be d/l’d. I recall when greeting sites were simple. Now it seems, so many need to be d/l’d before being able to use a site.
Sorry, my question above may be in the wrong place. But I have no idea how or where to properly place it.
Recent remark links do not appear to be working?
So if you have slow computer (say Atom 1.6Ghz and 1GB DDR3 RAM) and a pretty faster AMD Athlon X2 3Ghz with 2GB DDR2 RAM you’ll have sensibly faster connection speed with the Athlon box especially when browsing through the net and there is actually nothing you could do to have the same speed even on the same cable. I actually have dead-slow connection on the Atom-machine with top about 10KB/s when browsing sites (which with modern sites means loading site for up to a minute). Same sites, same internet is 5+ times faster on the Athlon-pc. I am just summarising what you said. Anyway I must ask if there can be done anything to improve the situation because I am very frustrated with the slow speeds of the Atom-machine.
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