Very slow wifi, works fine in safe mode with networking

[Kazma]

I've been out of the house for 5 days while my wood floors were refinished, and now that I am back my wifi is much much slower than normal. It will be okay at random moments for maybe 30 seconds to 3 minutes but then slows down to the point where it's almost unusable. When I take speed tests (even when wifi is slow) I get high download speeds, yet browsing and gaming is nearly impossible. (Example)
I tried safe mode with networking and my speeds are back where they should be. When I boot out of safemode the speeds are unreliable again. I've installed malwarebytes but nothing was found. Looking for suggestions :|

 

[boosted1g]

Have you tested this with more then computer?

Have you tested this with hardwired ethernet?

 

[Bluesh1ft]

Alright. I know this. press windows key. type cmd. and run it as admin and type ipconfig /flushdns and turn the computer off. At this time also unplug router for 60 seconds and then turn the router on. Do not turn your computer back on until all the lights on the router are as they were before turning it off.

 

[Kazma]

Have you tested this with more then computer?

Have you tested this with hardwired ethernet?

I've tried on other PCs and they all connect fine. I cannot use ethernet due to the location of my modem.

 

[Kazma]

Alright. I know this. press windows key. type cmd. and run it as admin and type ipconfig /flushdns and turn the computer off. At this time also unplug router for 60 seconds and then turn the router on. Do not turn your computer back on until all the lights on the router are as they were before turning it off.

Trying this now.

 

[Bluesh1ft]

Alright. I know this. press windows key. type cmd. and run it as admin and type ipconfig /flushdns and turn the computer off. At this time also unplug router for 60 seconds and then turn the router on. Do not turn your computer back on until all the lights on the router are as they were before turning it off.

Trying this now.

Work on no?

 

[boosted1g]

Have you tested this with more then computer?

Have you tested this with hardwired ethernet?

I've tried on other PCs and they all connect fine. I cannot use ethernet due to the location of my modem.

Testing with wired lets you know if it is a wifi problem (either signal or wifi chip), or a problem with windows and networking as a whole. It is a very important troubleshooting step to diagnose the root of the problem. So it might be inconvenient to have to move a desktop temporarily but it is necessary

 

[Bluesh1ft]

Uhm. You can try going into the wifi router control panel and changing the channel setting to A less common one like 5 or 7

 

[boosted1g]

Uhm. You can try going into the wifi router control panel and changing the channel setting to A less common one like 5 or 7

Setting it to 5 or 7 wont help because of the way wifi frequencies overlap, read bellow:

@ Kazma: This is likely not your issue at all but wanted to clarify misinformation.

There are 11 (or 14 depending on where you are at in the world) different wifi channels for the 2.4 ghz band, but this is very misleading because they overlap. So the real only non-overlapping channels are 1, 6, and 11. With a N150 connection if on channel 1 it really interferes with channel 1-3, if on channel 6 it interfers with 4-8. With an N300 that it is even worse because you are using 2 channels so with channel 1 you are using 1-5; if on channel 6 and doing N300 you are interfering with bands 4-10.

The best advice is to use a wifi scanner app (plenty for iOS and andorid), and look at channels 1,6, and 11 and find the one with the lowest max signal reading (anything at -80 dBm or lower is very weak, -90 and lower is completely not a factor). So if you have 3 neighbors on 1, 3 on 6, and 4 on 11; highest signal on 1 is -82, highest on 6 is -75, and highest on 11 is -63 then you would want to use channel 1 since -82 is the lowest.

In a very crowded urban area (like a large apartment building) then you may get so oversaturated with wifi signal that all 3 primary channels have high signal strength. At that point choosing one of the off-beat channels would help, although I would at least suggest going 2-3 channels over from a primary channel instead of just 1.

 

[Kazma]

Alright. I know this. press windows key. type cmd. and run it as admin and type ipconfig /flushdns and turn the computer off. At this time also unplug router for 60 seconds and then turn the router on. Do not turn your computer back on until all the lights on the router are as they were before turning it off.

Seems to be working after this (sorry for late reply) but I'm going to give it an hour and see if it stays this way. Will report back.

 

[Kazma]

Alright. I know this. press windows key. type cmd. and run it as admin and type ipconfig /flushdns and turn the computer off. At this time also unplug router for 60 seconds and then turn the router on. Do not turn your computer back on until all the lights on the router are as they were before turning it off.

Worked like a charm! Thanks.