Laptop very slow when not connected to cable.

[Globalti]

It's a Sony VAIO with XP and has worked perfectly for the two years I've had it. I had a Vodafone dongle that worked perfectly overseas. It worked seamlessly on hotel wifis and on our BT homehub wifi at home.

Then our IT bloke gave me a spare dongle, which didn't work. He came and changed a few settings on my laptop, but the dongle still didn't work.

Now when I'm using the laptop in a wifi zone, i.e. NOT connected to the office network by a cable, it takes about 45 seconds to open everything. I mean everything, Firefox, anything on the Start menu, pictures, the lot. The only thing that opens instantly is documents (Word and Excel) with shortcuts on my desktop. This is irritating. It still works as it should when connected by cable.

IT man swears he hasn't changed any settings and I can't do a system restore because it's not permitted.

Anybody got any idea what could be causing the slowness? The cable connection ought to be a clue but I don't know enough about computers to think it through.

 

[Globalti]

I have Googled and found this: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-230534.html

Could this be of any relevance, do you think? All this jargon is way beyond my comprehension.

 

[rh100]

That is a Ubuntu (Linux) forum rather than Windows.

Try this: right click the taskbar in an empty spot and select task manager from the menu, then select the processes tab and click the word CPU at the top of the third column, until the highest cpu usage is at the top of the list.

Is there a process taking a high amount of cpu?

 

[2Loose]

Hmmm, that Ubuntu link reminded me of a slowdown 'problem' when IP v6 is enabled in Linux and I wonder if the same thing can be applied to Windows XP. Never heard of this on XP, but you never know.

Check properties of your wifi network device (Settings -> Control Panel -> Network connections, Right Click on the connection, select Properties) and see if Internet Protocol v6 is installedenabled.

If it is, disable the IP v6 protocol (not the wifi device) and see if that helps. If not...dunno at this stage.

 

[Globalti]

That is a Ubuntu (Linux) forum rather than Windows.

Try this: right click the taskbar in an empty spot and select task manager from the menu, then select the processes tab and click the word CPU at the top of the third column, until the highest cpu usage is at the top of the list.

Is there a process taking a high amount of cpu?

Just system idle process SYSTEM taking 99 then a couple of other things like Firefox, which appear briefly taking 01 to 04. Is this what you'd expect?

 

[Globalti]

Hmmm, that Ubuntu link reminded me of a slowdown 'problem' when IP v6 is enabled in Linux and I wonder if the same thing can be applied to Windows XP. Never heard of this on XP, but you never know.

Check properties of your wifi network device (Settings -> Control Panel -> Network connections, Right Click on the connection, select Properties) and see if Internet Protocol v6 is installedenabled.

If it is, disable the IP v6 protocol (not the wifi device) and see if that helps. If not...dunno at this stage.

The wireless network connection is using Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).

I notice that in addition to the Wireless Network Connection there's also something called 1394 Connection 2 connected - what's that?

 

[2Loose]

1394 is a firewire connection, it is like USB and looks like a usb socket but has a pointed end, Not connected to this problem though.

 

[rh100]

Just system idle process SYSTEM taking 99 then a couple of other things like Firefox, which appear briefly taking 01 to 04. Is this what you'd expect?

Seems normal - is that when it is playing up though? On wifi?

Can you uninstall the vodafone dongle software and see if the wifi is ok then? - or maybe get IT to reinstall the wifi drivers also.

 

[scook94]

You might want to run this utility to restore all your TCP/IP stuff back to default.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Network-Tweak/XP-TCP-IP-Repair.shtml

 

[Globalti]

Yes, that was while it was trying to open Firefox.

 

[Norm]

As 2Loose said, the 1394 adapter is fine.

As it is bad when wireless but ok when cabled, there are clues there but too many of them. First thing I'd do is to go into the "computer management" (that should be through Control Panel > Admin Tools > Computer Management) then click on device manager and expand the "network adapters" tree in the right hand pane. Delete the WiFi adapter (right click and uninstall) then reboot the machine. That should reload the drivers, just in case they've had a brain-fart.

Has anyone mentioned MS Config? Might be worth running, after doing a virus check to see if anything nasty has got onto your system.

 

[Globalti]

Thanks, will try and report back.

 

[Globalti]

I've sorted it! I decided to shut the computer down (rather than hibernate) and re-start normally. When I did, a window appeared with a message saying I'd used the System Configuration Utility to make changes to the way Windows starts, meaning the utility would run every time. It recommended that I reset to normal startup mode, which I did and now the laptop is running normally when not connected to the network cable, everything opens at normal speed, documents, applications, web pages, the lot.

What had the IT bloke done? Is he a muppet? He swore he hadn't changed anything. How would this System Utility thingy affect the speed only when off the network?

 

[rh100]

Whoops - sometimes the most obvious isn't always mentioned - whilst a bit of a joke, a reboot will fix many strange problems with PC's - should always be the first thing done at the sign of trouble. I think that message normally comes up if making any changes to msconfig utility. Some things just go wrong sometimes - and is often quicker to resolve with a reboot or reinstall than to look for the root cause - it's sometimes only really worth searching for an answer if it's a repeat problem. IT bloke may not be a muppet - just bad luck maybe?