Laptop has full speed internet one minute and less than dial-up speed the next

[redwing717]

I have a Best Buy floor model HP Envy laptop which is driving me crazy and I've been unable to find this question asked anywhere. I also have a 5 year old HP Pavillion laptop that works fine, as well as a desktop, phones, chromebook, Netflix, etc. that have no internet issues. The problem is one minute the Envy internet speed is working fine and the next minute it virtually locks up. I have tested both laptops next to each other and the old one runs consistent 15 mbps. The new laptop will run 15 mbps one minute and .28 mbps the next. Five minutes later it will run 15 again. I've tried it with Explorer and Firefox with no difference, and it happens wireless or Ethernet connected. HP has looked at it and said it was a software issue, but it has been like this from day one with only HP shipped software on it. The wifi card and the HD have tested out fine and the computer has no error screens or any other problems. It has minimal software on the machine currently and I've run both anti-virus and several malware programs that have found nothing. Does anyone have any ideas what this could be?

 

[jsmithepa]

If other devices in the house works fine then it's not your LAN.

If both NIC in the laptop have the same problem I wager both NIC are how they should be.

HP says software problem, WHOSE software? HP? Microsoft?

One, if problem existed since day one, you should not have waited this long, am assuming is beyond warranty?

First thing I would do is, save all data then restore laptop to its factory condition and test.

If that doesn't work, I would try a USB-based NIC.

After that, write it off. 🙁

BTW, are you the administrator of your LAN? If somebody else, that somebody may had throttled you from day one because he noticed you were using way too much bandwidth.

 

[redwing717]

Thanks jsmithepa, yes I am the LAN administrator so that is out of the equation. In regards to software, HP just says it's a software and not a hardware issue and only wants to give more information and fix the problem after I sign up for a year or a one-time use of their technical support starting at about $135. I've never dealt with a situation that couldn't be fixed and thought the laptop had the 1 year warranty covering this, but apparently that's not the case for software issues. Lesson learned I guess! I will attempt to restore to factory settings next, just thought I would see if anyone had any ideas before I did that. Thanks for the input and if anyone else has anything further I would appreciate it.

 

[jsmithepa]

$135 bux for hardware problem only? Boy I don't know what to tell you. Am actually surprised their tech support haven't told you to reset to factory, this is standard procedure, I used to be a tech. They can blame all day to "others" people software, but when you reset to factory, supposedly everything is as HP shipped you and should be covered in its entirety. You may want to talk to a manager after you try the factory thing, hey "it's now as you shipped me and it doesn't work."

 

[redwing717]

Yeah, that's what i thought on the pricing to get their guaranteed solution. That was after trying to sell me a 2-year or 3-year McAfee Security Software. I will try the reset and if that doesn't work I will take your suggestion and call back to speak with a manager. I appreciate your help. Thanks!