DSL Freezing, slow system performance

Hey All,

I use Vista Home Edition 32-bit on a three-year old ASUS laptop,and run AVG anti-virus software with regular updates. I'm looking for general direction here, because I'm not at my computer right now, so I can't give exact names and numbers of my system (I will come back and add them), but I wanted some advice as to where to start investigating this issue I've been having.

My DSL service (Verizon) keeps freezing and pausing when I surf or watch streaming video (ie; Netflix - I can hardly watch instantly on Netflix anymore, the downloading freezes so much). This issue has gotten worse in the past few weeks, but it's been a problem for a while, maybe a year and a half or so. When I surf, the lights on my modem will stop blinking for a while, during which time my internet activity pauses--no links are clickable, the timer runs on and on (seems forever), and then the modem lights will begin to blink again, restoring surfing ability. It really slows down my internet performance.

I called Verizon to inquire, and they said it was because I had too many processes running. Yes, I have too many processes running--about 90-100 at a time--but I've read elsewhere that's not really relevant to this issue. Verizon did a download/upload test and my modem and it was indeed getting way below the speed it should be getting. The woman said I needed to take my computer to an IT person to get it checked out.

Now, before I go that far, if you had this problem--what would you do, or check?

Thanks for the direction.

Sphinx4444

Welcome
Start with a clean boot and see if that helps, if it does follow procedure to find the true cause
How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7
I would look at this
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/81176-speed-up-performance-vista.html
Test your speed to see if you are getting what you paid for
http://speedtest.net/index.php
Tr these steps
Updating the video display driver with a new one
- Increasing the computer's RAM chip
- Closing the browser and tabs that are not needed
- - Close YouTube without closing the browser
- Then shutting down and rebooting the system
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3826937

Hi Is your Windows Defender runnng in the background? Defenders Full Scan sucks the perfprmance out of yhe system. If you run full scan with any virus malware etc program, It will affect the performance too. Schedule the scans for when you go to bed.