e1505 gets sluggish when transferring files over network

As the title says, my E1505 gets sluggish when I receive large files at fast transfer rates ( >3 MB/s) over my college network. It only recently began doing this. It did it earlier but the only thing it affected was windows media player (made the song get stutter). Now on top of that, it makes the mouse move slow and choppy, computer generally slow, etc. The computer is still just as fast as it has always been when I'm not receiving large files at fast rates. Any help with this problem is appreciated. Thanks.

 

college network? meaning college Internet? or ethernet?
unlike Latitude, Inspiron comes with 10/100 network card. Other computers at your college probably has 10/100/1000 network card, allowing faster data transfer.

All computers should support 10/100/1000 network, this is year 2006. By not including 10/100/1000 laptop vendors pushes lan party gamers to buy high end machines.

 

I'd check support.dell.com and redownload and install your WiFi, Ethernet, and NSS drivers. There might be a problem with your current installation that is causing it to hang.

Also, scan you system for viruses and spyware just in case.

When these hangs are occuring, take a look at the task manager...is there a process there that is spiking in CPU usage? Right Click on Start Bar->Task Manager->Processes->Click once on CPU to sort by %used. If the driver update doesn't work doing this might give us a little extra info.

 

It has a Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller. Yeah, college internet, it's crazy fast (imo). The time it takes to download a 700 mb file has decreased slightly but not much, from about 2 min to 3 min. I will check for updated drivers and processes that spike CPU usage.

 

Even if the college internet is fast, you're still going to top out at 100Mbps...which shouldn't stress the computer at all. Even gigE wouldn't if you had it.

 

Note sure if this is related, but I just received my e1505 and the network speed is very slow. The computer is very fast, but anything having to do with the network (Ethernet or wifi) is ridiculously slow. Google takes 1 min to return a search page, downloads run at around 1kbps, etc. I'm plugged in at the office, so it's not the Internet or routers or cables (we tried changing all of that). It is also slow when transferring over the LAN (not just the internet) and it drops connections and pings all the time.

I also reinstalled XP -no luck. I even tried a Linux Boot Disk which contained FireFox and it ran just as sluggish. This has to be hardware right?

Any suggestions? I have a case open with Dell. But no luck so far.

 

I have a E1505, I've had no problems downloading from the internet or trasfering files from either wireless (intel) or wired. Downloads from the internet usually run around 500kbs with no sign of my computer slowing down.

 

I mean there's definitely something wrong with my machine. The computer itself never slows down or get slow. Just trying to figure out where to look or just send it back/have a tech come out.

 

have you tried using a program like tune up utilities to optimize any of your network/internet/tcp ip settings? with my desktop and notebook, i was happy with the speed, but after using this program i noticed a big difference. there are other programs like the one i'm using, and i'm sure you can dl some for free, or at least get a 30-90 day full use trial.

 

No, I haven't. What kind of program is this and where would I get it?

 

More great info on adjusting the MTU size as well as other network settings based on your specific network/router configuration here.