Crazy Slow Internet

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unlearnthetruth

Recycle Me!
Ok my friend is on an older iMac DV Special Edition, on a college ethernet network at Clark Uni. She's running 9.2.2. I don't know how to help her so I'm hoping someone here can... here's the problem in her words:

"the net has been going exceedingly slow on my comp ever since i got here, so slow in fact that certain sites wont load at all, yahoo and hotmail usually work all right but not many other sites, including clarks which is a pain cuz i need it a lot. my other room mates internets are fine, i tried plugging my cable into their wall connector thingies - i tried using a different cable. i reinstalled internet explorer and that didnt help - someone told me to use netscape instead and thats a little better but barely"

Any ideas?
 
She tells me that AIM connects and works just fine... Which would suggest to me that it's more a problem with the www port than an overall ethernet connection problem, no?

Just an idea...
 
Have her check the proxy settings in IE and make sure she's not going through some crappy, slow server. And of course there's always the "trash the preferences" method of attack. ;-) If it were a Windows machine, I would suspect spyware, but I don't think there's really anything like that for OS 9, thankfully.
 
Well, perhaps some advanced configuration option got messed up in the TCP/IP control panel. I can't remember off the top of my head what you might want to look for, so you'll just have to open it up and see if anything looks applicable. It might not hurt to check the Startup Items folder for anything that could bog down the connection, and also try disabling any firewall type software if she has any.
 
I helped my brother with this recent problem with his old version of Netscape, and it may be the same for the IE browser.

If you don't delete your cache files every once in a while, it can get so full that your computer spends all it's time loading the cache than actually loading the pages you want. The browser can get bogged down with all the stored files. I would recommend deleting your cache files and setting IE to store only 5 or 10 MB of data to start with. My brother was on an older iMac and they seem more succeptible to bloated cache folders slowing down their web performance.

Also increase ram to the browser and see how many programs you have open while you are using IE. If you lighten the load sometimes that helps over all.

Lastly, rebuild the desktop twice (command+option on start-up till you see the "Are you sure you want to rebuild the desktop?") and if that doesn't work you need to probably zap the pram three times (hold command+option+p+r and let the system chime three times. Do not let go of those buttons for the entire duration) on that iMac. Depending on how old the computer is this may be the first time rebuilding and zapping that have ever been done on the machine. Zapping pram is pretty safe, but I am not liable for anything strange that might occur. Just to give the disclaimer on that one.

Hope some of this helps! Cheers...
 
Alright. She zapped PRAM, rebuilt desktop, and went so far as to reformat the hard drive and reinstall EVERYTHING...

starting from scratch - her internet connection is still unusably slow. Apparently the hardware in the room is fine.

Could her ethernet card be shot? is that a possibility? i didn't think it was, but i'm not so sure what else it could be...
 
Since you have done everything I would do in the situation, I don't have much to add.

However, I notice you are using Jaguar. It's the update to Mac OS X--have you tried your ethernet while in Classic mode or booted up with System 9.2 as your main system? That might rule out Jaguar being the culprit.

The best thing to do would be to check the hard drive with Disk First Aid, then Alsoft Disk Warrior. You could have a bad preference file as well. Most techs I know tell me the simplest way to fix a computer problem is to delete that program's preference file. Just be aware you lose your settings and serial number entries for that program.

Lastly, take the computer in to a licensed apple provider and see if it's a motherboard or logic board error. You may have gotten one of the 1-5% off the production line that are just flawed. My iMAC was one of those--the logic board went out and I had to have it replaced.

Hope some of this helps. I admire your thoroughness with this issue--if there was an obvious problem, you probably would have found it by now.

Nato
 
It could be here ethernet cable. Is it home made? If so, the wires could be crossed, resulting in slow speeds.
 
she's tried different cables, different jacks, different computers on her jack... everything imaginable... very strange indeed.
 
Originally posted by Natobasso
However, I notice you are using Jaguar. It's the update to Mac OS X--have you tried your ethernet while in Classic mode or booted up with System 9.2 as your main system? That might rule out Jaguar being the culprit.
...
Hope some of this helps. I admire your thoroughness with this issue--if there was an obvious problem, you probably would have found it by now.

Nato
Click to expand...

Well the problem isn't on my computer - it's on a friend's running 9.2.2

Also when she just did the reformat she was using 9.0 i suppose, or whatever came on the iMac - no luck there either.

Thanks for the kind words as well - I appreciate it, though It's still irking me that i can't figure out this problem!

Greg
 
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