Dear “Ask The Geek”

I have a high speed (Broadband) connection to the Internet, but sometimes it seems really slow. Any suggestions?

— Bill

Remember when you got your shiny new broadband Internet connection? If you’re like me, you went straight to the Web sites that you struggled to view before and downloaded files that would have choked your dial-up connection. It’s addictive. When those speeds are fleeting, you feel angry. Perhaps betrayed.

Sometimes the problem is with your Internet Service Provider. There might be a lot of Internet traffic at certain points of the day; or, there might be a service outage somewhere that is slowing down the Web servers you are trying to connect to.

More often than not, that creep and crawl of your Internet connection might actually be the fault of your PC.

If you’re having persistent connection problems, you should try to determine whether the culprit is your Internet connection or your computer. When you’ve got about 15 minutes to spare, try this:

1. To make this a fair test, reboot your PC, then log in as usual. Wait until everything starts up.

2. Don’t start any programs except your usual Web browser.

3. Go to www.toast.net. Click on “Internet Speed Test.”

4. Choose the “Shuttle + Text” test (it’s the largest test), then click “Run Test.” Make a note of your results.

5. Run the test a second time choosing a different “Web Host” from the list. Note those results, too.

6. Reboot your computer into “Safe Mode with Networking.” If you don’t know how to get into “Safe Mode with Networking,” see the link at the end before proceeding.

7. Once your computer is in Safe Mode, start up the same Web browser and repeat steps 3-5.

If the results of the speed tests are significantly faster when you perform them under Safe Mode, the problem most likely belongs to your computer. It might need a thorough cleaning — removing unused programs, cleaning up junk files and telling unnecessary programs to stop loading themselves automatically.

The computer definitely needs to be swept for malware, using scanning software that is updated the day you use it. I recommend a combination of “AVG Anti-Virus,” “Spybot Search & Destroy” and “SuperAntiSpyware” for these types of situations. All of these programs have free versions. You’ll want to run malware scans under Safe Mode, too.

If the scans yield little or nothing and your problem persists, you might need to consider a memory upgrade for your PC. It may simply be struggling to load your Web browser while competing for memory with other applications.

On the other hand, if your Internet connection is no faster under Safe Mode, and the results you’re seeing are significantly lower than your broadband plan promises, you should contact your ISP. They may need to test lines or make corrections.

This certainly isn’t an exhaustive list of what could be wrong, but it’s what I would suspect first. If your PC is otherwise fairly speedy, lean your suspicions toward your ISP. However, if your PC is sluggish during other tasks besides browsing the Web, the problem may more likely be the PC.

Links: Instructions for booting Windows into “Safe Mode” : http://www.computerhope.com/issues/chsafe.htm

Kevin McDonald: Writer and professional computer/network administrator. He lives in Amarillo with his wife and children, and owns and operates Definition Computers. E-mail Kevin at askthegeek@definitioncomputers.com with questions you’d like to see answered in this column.

(This article was originally published in the Amarillo Independent newspaper.)