SLOW Internet

Question

I have a brand new Dimension 2400. A very basic system with P4 2.4 and 128 Meg of RAM.

I have Comcast Cable internet service thru a Linksys wireless access point/router.

The Dell is using a Linksys USB Wireless network adapter. The performance of the adapter is very good .. signal strength is excellent.

The other computers on my network (Gateway 1.8 ghz, e-machine 1.2 ghz, IBM ThinkPad 900 mhz) all run XP and surf the internet FAST... like most pages load almost instantaneously.

But on the Dell surfs the internet noticably slower than any of the other computers on my network. It seems to be OK sometime, and I've even run some tests and got good numbers (bandwidthplace.com, 1.5 mB/sec), but often, when I go to load a webpage, it takes a long time (like maybe a minute)! It feels worse than dial-up!

Again, I load a page on it and its slow, go across the room to my cheapo cheapo e-machines, and it loads the page instantaneously.

I already de-activated the McAfee on-line virus protection which seemed to be affecting the general performance of the system negatively. But surfing is still slow.

A friend of mine who also has a new Dell Dimension with a DSL connection (no router or anything in between) seems to be having similar problems.

Is this a known problem with Dell Dimensions? Any suggestions?

jmwills · Answer

The most thing in your post is the 128mb of RAM.  XP works best (providing this is XP) with 512 mb RAM, but 128 megs is really low for any system running these days.

jdaniels509 · Answer

Hmmm. Certainly could be related to RAM size. I notice that it seems fine when I first start surfing after booting up. But after a while (15-20 mins of steady surfing) it just slows to a crawl. Could there be some kind of memory leak, where memory is being grabbed and not returned to the operating system?

I am definitely going to buy/install more memory today and see if that helps.

Meanwhile, if anyone has any other ideas/similar experiences, I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks for all the help.

Jim

jmwills · Answer

There are some programs that just refuse to release memory unless forced to.  I'll dp a search and see what I find.

jdaniels509 · Answer

I added 256 meg of memory, so I'm now a 384 meg (which tripled the system memory). I've been using it for about an hour and the whole system is much snappier. No internet surfing problems so far either. Thanks so much for the excellent advice!

Jim

awolfhound · Answer

I recently purchased a DELL 2400 2.8 P4 with 256 memory. I have a new Asylum geforce 5200 256MB graphics card to install also. I have the 5.1 sound card & Z 5300 surround sound speakers.

I would like to know if there are any cons to adding 512 memory module to my 256. Is it compatible with the system I have ?

volcano11 · Answer

awoldhound,

This question has absolutely nothing to do with Dimension Networks nor is it in any way related to the topic or the thread to which you replied. Whether or not the memory will work in your 2400 depends entirely on whether or not the memory is the same type and is compabible with your computer. You don't say what kind of memory it is. Try asking your question in the Dimension - General Hardware forum and be sure to state the type of memory that you are wanting to add. I'm sure someone over there will be able to help if you provide the necessary information.

Steve

awolfhound · Answer

Actually adding the memory speeded up my internet ! 256 hardly ran but 768 definetly improved performance in most areas. Was a dog with 256. I run cable modem & assumed all eould know I would be adding the same type of memory (duh).

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

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