Internet connection on a go-slow!

This has got me tearing my hair out...and I hope someone here can give me some guidance on sorting this out.

Been running Vista x64 for a while with no problems at all ( yes...honestly!!! ) with a Quad Core and 4Gb ram and an internet connection that was as good as I was expecting. A few months back, though, things went downhill very suddenly!

Now, it takes 20 minutes plus just to open some websites, and download speeds have dropped to virtually nothing. I am talking dialup speeds on a 2Mb line.

Model is a Belkin wireless router, but I am connected to it by cable since the PC is right by the phone line. I have 2 other PC's in the house ( both running XP wirelessly ) One is temporarily offline due to other issues... but the other is connecting normally with no speed problems.

I have done the 'google' thing, and disabled the auto-tuning facility, with no noticable improvements.

Contacting my ISP was a waste of time. So much so, in fact, that I am going to change ISP at the end of the month.

I was told:

1) Try another computer....yeah...thanks
2) Buy a new modem ... bit early to jump to that conclusion
3) There was nothing wrong...and no I don't have a supervisor you can talk to...
4) Just restart your modem and call us back.
5) Someone else is using your network connection

That was the best they could manage. I am no expert when it comes to networking, but I can figure out a few things:

a) Virus check has been done, with latest virus definitions. Adware checked too.
b) Actual line is delivering what it should, or the XP machine would be slow as well
c) Vista was working fine up until a couple of months ago...so something has changed that caused this problem
d) It's not the auto-tuning
e) The modem 'activity' light comes on and stays on, rather than blinking rapidly as it does when normally active. Every now and again it flashes a few times....but hten back to solid light.

The modem is a couple of years old, so it may well have failed, but it seems odd that it would fail in such a specific way.

Can anyone help?

Is this possibly a modem problem?

I unplugged the modem/router last night, and left it off untilk this afternoon when I plugged it back in. Now I am getting a half-decent access speed. Can a model slow down when it is beginning to fail?

I was having some very similar issues, as well as a number of other people who have posted here. I even tried buying a new modem, switching my firewall/virus software and numerous other fixes, nothing worked.

It finally came down to the fact that it MUST be a Vista issue. Since then, I've done a complete fresh re-install, without any updates, and the internet connection stays strong and stable. Every other day or so, I re-install one or two Windows' updates, trying to narrow down which update is the one causing the problem.

Have a little patience, when I am able to narrow down the culprit, I will post my conclusion here, and hopefully, for everyone else having the issue, it will be as simple as uninstalling that faulty update.

Zoloft

ok, how many systems do you have connected to the modem? and what operating systems do they have?
if you have two different OS'es running, can you test the connection on both systems? go here Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test and test your connection on 2 different systems to elaborate if it is a vista issue, both need to be identical in the same location, and post the seperate image urls here.

Go to the link below and try changing your RWIN setting as noted in the link.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/72308-auto-tuning-tcp-ip-receive-level.html

OK...systems attached :

2 x XP via wireless, and one Vista 64 with the cable directly. One XP system is fine, but the other one has recently stopped detecting the existence of the wireless network .... and I can't get it to find it at all now. This is leaqding me to think the modem may be at fault here.

Connection also appears to be rather variable. And that is not something I would expect. I have had several short bursts of decent response, with longer spelss of so slow I can't even open the homepage frustrations.

Playing about with the autotune a DWIN doesn't seem to have any impact.

I don't know if you have a newer Dell computer or not. I have a Dell computer with an Intel Quad core, 6 GB of ram, running Vista x64 on a 10 MBps cable provider and was having severe connectivity issues. The problem was intermittent andit finally involved several Dell technicans to solve the problem. They are loading a new program - Dell Remote Access - and they've found it can cause severe connectivity issues. Delete the program and everything works fine.