My browsing is sort of fast, but my upload speeds are dead slow.?

Question

My temporary roommate just moved out of my house (finally!), and we was running on a router with cable modem just fine with fast speeds. Before that, we were having troubles and we found out it was ip address conflictions (we both were trying to take the same ip address or something).

So now he is gone, he took his router, now im connected straight to the modem (motorola kind). Finally took a while to speed up (sometimes it wouldn't connect at all), but most sites will run fine, others will take super slow. I can't even upload nothing on my online project management system for my web design business. Everytime I upload, it just times out. When i get on the computer at school and try, works fine. If you think its something dealing with ip addesses again or something, please let me know..

thanks

kyrrian · Accepted Answer

If you're connected directly to the cable modem, I would first suggest that you get a cheap broadband router to add a level of security. When you get a real world IP address from that cable modem, everyone in the world can start trying to get into your computer. And if you're not very well protected with AntiVirus and Firewall software, your machine could be in big trouble within just a few days. There are people out there who do nothing but run scripts against known working IP addresses to try to take control of machines. If yours has unknowingly had software placed on it, it's possible that you are experiencing the slowness for that reason. 

Routers are really cheap these days -- $20 or so if you watch the Sunday ads. It's a small price to pay to add a level of privacy between your computer and the world. There are still a bunch of other things to worry about, but that shouldn't be one. 

If you're concerned about your speed, run a speed test -- 

http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest

Pick one of the eight cities listed, then watch as data is downloaded, then uploaded to determine the speed of your connection. 

If it matches closely with what your connection is rated for, the problem is with the site you're using, rather than your PC. 

For instance, my DSL connection at work is rated for around 1500k download and 384k upload. My test today (linked below) shows that it's getting very close to those limits on both sides, so if I have slowness, it's not the connection's fault. 

If you find that you're not getting anywhere near what you should be, try another city with the same test. If you still get really low results, it's time to call support. 

Hope that helps!

malisa · Answer

Upload speed is only a factor when you are uploading new videos to your YouTube channel, not watching videos. Run Speedtest. Try it for servers in different locations. If you aren't getting the 10 Mb you are supposed to, complain to your ISP. If your download speeds are good, and the problem is for many websites, there may be an issue with your computer. Scan it for viruses and malware. Clean junk off your hard drive and defragment it. See if you have programs running in the background that you don't need.

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My browsing is sort of fast, but my upload speeds are dead slow.?

2 Answers