Program slowing connection?

[flcusat]

I have both Bellsouth DSL and Comcast High Speed Internet service at home, which I got installed a couple of weeks ago. While I was testing the speed at Speakeasy.net, I noticed that both, my laptop and my desktop were getting speeds of 2Mbps tops. The other two computers in the house were getting above 20Mbps and when I tested the VUDU XL I got speeds above 4Mbps. I'm wondering if there is any program installed in both machines that could be causing the slow down. From the top of my head the following programs are common to both machines. Quickbooks, Dedicated Micros observer and Dtools SI 5.2, Netlinx Studio and TPD4 from AMX. Any ideas where I should look at? After I realized about this problem, I was at a job site this afternoon and I tested again with the customer's computer and one of my installers laptop and compared with my laptop and got the same results. So I should have some software or setting in both computers that is limiting the internet connection to around 2Mbps.

[jberger]

I'd try testing first with the tools at www.dslreport.com
You can pick a few sites and test to check consistency of your connection.

If it's still just 2mb on a 4mb connection, I'd start with the network settings and possibly update your drivers on the network card.
You can test your IP stack outside of your network card if your dsl/cable modem offers a usb connection. It's a great way to see if it's a hardware issue with the NIC or IP Stack.

Finally, I'd grab a copy of process explorer from the microsoft downloads site and monitor what's actually running on your PC. It's amazing what can screw things up without showing up in the regular task manager. I consistently have an HP printer driver that goes crazy and consumes 50% of a CPU until I kill it manually. It's not listed out in task manager, but readily apparent in process explorer.

[jwjames83]

Should be http://www.dslreports.com/ - easy typo!

[flcusat]

I'd try testing first with the tools at www.dslreport.com (http://www.dslreport.com)
You can pick a few sites and test to check consistency of your connection.

If it's still just 2mb on a 4mb connection, I'd start with the network settings and possibly update your drivers on the network card.
You can test your IP stack outside of your network card if your dsl/cable modem offers a usb connection. It's a great way to see if it's a hardware issue with the NIC or IP Stack.

Finally, I'd grab a copy of process explorer from the microsoft downloads site and monitor what's actually running on your PC. It's amazing what can screw things up without showing up in the regular task manager. I consistently have an HP printer driver that goes crazy and consumes 50% of a CPU until I kill it manually. It's not listed out in task manager, but readily apparent in process explorer.

Thanks for your input. I downloaded process explorer last night to the desktop and I couldn't find anything causing the problem. I started shutting down processes one by one and testing the speed, to the point that the only processes left, would turn off or restart the desktop if they were stopped. My wife's desktop and my desktop are identical machines so I check the version drivers in both of them and they were identical. This morning I hooked my laptop to the modem by usb after I downloaded the USB drivers and the speed is even lower than when connected through the AP. I downloaded an utility from Microsoft's support site that reconfigures the IP stack to the original values for your windows version, and it didn't help either. I couldn't find any drivers version newer from my desktop and laptop either.