Question My computer has incredibly slow internet in very specific situations.

[NeoConstantine]

I have had my latest desktop for about a year, and through that time its internet connection has slowly gotten worse. At first I thought it was a router problem, but I moved my computer to a different house and it was the same. Then I thought it was an adapter problem, but I bought multiple wifi adapters, and all of them work great on my laptop but not my desktop. They still connect to the internet, of course, but it's incredibly slow and often cuts out, no matter how good the internet itself is.

But for some reason, ethernet connections are just as fast as ever. I can't always connect my desktop to the router directly, but even bridging the connection through my laptop, using an ethernet cable to use my laptop's wifi on my desktop, is faster than using my desktop's wifi directly, with the same wireless adapter.

So it seems like, specifically, USB wireless internet adapters are being somehow slowed by my Windows install. Not disabled entirely, just slowed. And how would such a thing happen? It has nothing to do with the data or the hardware, and I asked around and nobody has ever heard of something this specific happening. I want to know how something like this even can happen. It seems so random.

 

[NeoConstantine]

I have had my latest desktop for about a year, and through that time its internet connection has slowly gotten worse. At first I thought it was a router problem, but I moved my computer to a different house and it was the same. Then I thought it was an adapter problem, but I bought multiple wifi adapters, and all of them work great on my laptop but not my desktop. They still connect to the internet, of course, but it's incredibly slow and often cuts out, no matter how good the internet itself is.

But for some reason, ethernet connections are just as fast as ever. I can't always connect my desktop to the router directly, but even bridging the connection through my laptop, using an ethernet cable to use my laptop's wifi on my desktop, is faster than using my desktop's wifi directly, with the same wireless adapter.

So it seems like, specifically, USB wireless internet adapters are being somehow slowed by my Windows install. Not disabled entirely, just slowed. And how would such a thing happen? It has nothing to do with the data or the hardware, and I asked around and nobody has ever heard of something this specific happening. I want to know how something like this even can happen. It was a steady decline and everything, originally it was just a bit of lag here and there, and now I'm lucky to get 10% speed on my desktop vs my laptop. It seems so random.

 

[Colif]

what are specs of your current PC?

Try a clean boot and see if it changes anything - make sure to read instructions and make sure NOT to disable any microsoft services or windows won't load right - https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows

It doesn’t delete anything, it just stops non Microsoft programs running with start. Easy to reverse.

if clean boot fixes it, it shows its likely a startup program. You should, over a number of startups. restart the programs you stopped to isolate the one that is to blame.

It might be interference? are they dual band?