Computer Download Speed Mysteriously Rate Limited

[J Zimm]

Typically wifi in our house works really well and we get good throughput (100+ mbps) on every device. I recently got a used desktop, ripped out the hard drive and replaced with a solid state(clean install) to have a family member use. However, this device gets at max 16 mbps internet. The device is a ways from the router, but it claims full signal strength on 2.4Ghz wireless n radio.

I have tried everything I can to get the speed to increase with no success.

• 
  Interchanged wifi card
  Ethernet direct connection
  "Reset" PC in windows
  External USB wifi adapter
  Connecting to a different AP
  Updating drivers
  Routing wifi through laptop setup as a hotspot (When I tried this, it also slowed the host laptop to a crawl on speed test website, just having the problem device connected.)

My question is if there might be some setting deep in windows that is messing with this connection.
Thanks.

 

[anotherdrew]

With a clean install of windows, the first thing windows does is starts downloading tons of updates. Could it be this activity that is slowing you down. Would also make sense with what happened in your laptop hotspot experiment.

Open up your resource monitor and see if the network is being heavily used.

 

[J Zimm]

Thank you for your response, the clean install sat for a few days before I even noticed the issue. The network will ocassionally be active but only ever to 15 mbps. A file transfer between two network computers shows speeds around 50-72 Mbps (wifi connection speed.) Which makes me even more confused why the internet is being limited.

 

[anotherdrew]

Your talking about a file transfer to or from this computer?

The computer connects to an AP. AP is connected to your router/modem (I assume). AP is used by other devices that don't have this issue (I assume). So, only traffic that is traversing through the router and out to the internet from this computer is having the issue. Very strange.

I assume you do IP assignment by DHCP. Anything weird about the ip configuration on this machine (ipv6 enabled here, but not on others?). Did you install any security software that you don't have on other machines? If you log into the router, does it have a list of connected devices ... anything weird about this one?

 

[J Zimm]

Your talking about a file transfer to or from this computer?

The computer connects to an AP. AP is connected to your router/modem (I assume). AP is used by other devices that don't have this issue (I assume). So, only traffic that is traversing through the router and out to the internet from this computer is having the issue. Very strange.

I assume you do IP assignment by DHCP. Anything weird about the ip configuration on this machine (ipv6 enabled here, but not on others?). Did you install any security software that you don't have on other machines? If you log into the router, does it have a list of connected devices ... anything weird about this one?

Copying a file from this computer to another over ethernet. There is nothing weird about the configuration as far as I can tell.

 

[anotherdrew]

Going back to your original question ... is there a setting deep in windows that could be doing this. No. There is software that could cause this. You have focused a lot on the computer. Have you ever tried restarting your router? Computer->computer seems fine, so it's not a network thing ... it's just a getting out to the internet thing.

 

[J Zimm]

My conclusion is something between bitdefender and driver installation. Here's the series of events: Bitdefender 2018 was originally in place, got wiped during OS reset, drivers got installed again, Bitdefender 2019 was installed. Internet is working at proper speeds now.