Internet Explorer slow

Question

Notebook: Dell Inspiron 6400

OS: Vista Home Premium

I got this new laptop recently which came preconfigured and ready to use. However web pages load really slowly with IE 7 and Firefox. The wierd thing is that i had my old HP laptop running XP sitting right next to it and the web pages loaded fine on that one. I'm connected through a Netgear DG834 wireless router with a 2mb broadband connection in a shared house at university with 4 other people whos' internet works fine so i dont think its the router. (They all use WinXP tho)

I did a speed test on bandwidthplace.com on the Wireless: 802.11 setting and here are the results:

Speed: 679.5 kilobits per second

Communications:679.5 kilobits per second
Storage:82.9 kilobytes per second
1MB file download:12.3 seconds
Subjective rating:Not bad

I dont think my download speeds are that bad and i've even been able to play battlefield 2 online without too much trouble so it just seems like a web browser problem but u cant uninstall IE7.

Whats even more confusing is that when i take my laptop to my proper home and connect through wireless with an 8mb broadband connection web pages seem to load up fine and i have no problems. So i dont think it can be a firewall issue either. Just in case u need to know i have McAfee which has its own firewall, and PC Tools spyware doctor along with windows defender.

So i'm a little confused as to why my laptop internet runs slow and noone elses does, and why it seems to be fine using my internet at home!? If anyone can shed any light on this it would be much appreciated....thanks.

jmwills · Answer

Check the connection settings and see if Auto Detect is selected, if so, uncheck it.

Lenny_eh · Answer

I had most of the same issues with my new 9200 dimension desktop and once I removed McAfee everything was 100% better. Others have reported the same on different forums here as well.

ramborulesthewo · Answer

Cheers guys for the help.  I went through Mcafee and tried disabling a few things and it turned out that the phishing filter was slowing everything down so i've disabled that and kept everything else and it works fine now.

nhderting · Answer

I have an 18-month old Dell Inspiron E1505 running XP, and am having similar trouble to this thread, only the problem is inconsistent, and has been since purchase.  Some web pages load quickly while others take minutes or never complete loading (white page with Done message).  I thought the problem was McAfee so switched over to Norton, which I'd used previously.  That version of Norton was awful too, so I switched to AVG, which did improve some things, but not all.  My wireless network isn't catching interference from a wireless phone because I went out and bought a 5.5 Ghz wireless phone to eliminate that from the mix.  PLUS, my husband's 5 year old HP laptop with an external wireless card runs just fine, ALL THE TIME.  I've optimized, removed temporary internet files and cookies, run my spybot remover and defragged, all to no avail.  I am at my wit's end!!  If anyone has any ideas, please reply.

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

Internet Explorer slow

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