Why is my internet slow?


A question we often get, independent from the ISP or the contracted speed, the internet appears to be slow or not working at all.

Here are some tips to help you improve the connection.

Power Cycle Equipment

Leaving your equipment on 24/7 day aftyer day can be of influence. It is a good idea to Power Cycle your computer once a day, and to do the same with your routers, accespoints, antenna. A power cycle routine on the equipment is: Turn the equipment Off, leave it off for minimum 30 seconds, than turn it back On. In most cases it is best to avoid the reset button on your equipment as this may take out the configuration of the equipment.

Virus and Spyware

First of all make sure that your computer is free of virus and spyware, an infected computer can also do a lot of harm to your internet speed.

 

Synchronization

In most cases the internet comes to a hold because of a synchronization process in the background. This can be something like Dropbox, GoogleDrive, OneDrive, iCloud or photostreaming. In many cases it can be linked back to a home of visitors with various smartphones and tablets, which are in the background syncing the photos and videos to the cloud and back to the gadgets. This can generate extreme amounts of data traffic. Apart from slowing down the internet speed during the sync process it could also mean that your monthly data limit is used up before the end of the month, resulting in the connection blocked, or having to pay extra for the usage.

 

Synchronization for Apple devices

Follow this link to see how you can change some settings on your iPhone or iPad to avoid this background syncing.

On the internet are also many complaints from users of iMac's with the Yosemite operating system that all of a sudden large amounts of data are transferred without any trace in their machine.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6605949?start=0&tstart=0
So if you do own a Mac it is worth while investigating.

 

Windows 10

In Windows 10 there is a new way to deal with the updates. Apart from the fact that you have no choice anymore if you want to download the updates, Microsoft has also decided that it would be best that each computer shares the updates with other Windows 10 computers. This can result in a complete standstill of your connection for anything other than providing internet updates to other users.

Follow this link to see an easy guide to disable this function in Windows 10.

 

More information and advice

If you cannot find a way to improve your speed we can help you in optimizing your internet usage. Or help you in switching to a different ISP which fits better with your bandwidth need. In most locations are now multiple options.

Contact us or visit us in our shop for more information.