When most of the computers on a network are running fine, but one computer on network has a very slow connection, it can be a little crazy-making trying to troubleshoot.
If you’re me, you go more than a little crazy because you know very little about networking. All I knew was that something was very wrong with my speeds.
You can verify that it’s a problem with one specific PC by running a speed test on the sluggish computer and also on another that appears to be functioning properly. (If you don’t have access to test another computer, try using a phone connected to the same wireless network to compare.)
Don’t ask me to explain these fixes or why they can work, because that’s above my pay grade. I can tell you that these are safe to try and may help.
Method One: Flushing DNS
- press windows logo key
- type “cmd” to find command prompt
- select “run as administrator” and allow the program permission to make changes
Then type the following commands into the command prompt box, in this order:
- ipconfig /flushdns
- ipconfig /registerdns
- ipconfig /release
- ipconfig /renew
- netsh winsock reset
You’ll want to restart your computer after running these commands, and then return to the speed test. You may also want to retry the speed test in a few minutes to make sure the fix “sticks.”
Method Two: Fix Wireless Connection
Last time this was an issue, I had something fishy going on with my wireless connection. So check your wireless.
But take note: while the network indicator I first looked at (accessed from the computer’s Taskbar) said my wireless was fine, going into the control panel to check gave different results: it said the wireless was disconnected.
You can open the right location this way:
Get to the Run dialog (got by pressing Win + R keys) and click OK to open the interface. Type in this and return: input ncpa.cpl
This is what you’ll see…
After toggling the connection on and off a couple of times, it now was saying I was, indeed connected and I got my high speeds back.
Note: I also noticed while the wireless network was disconnected, DNS for certain websites wasn’t working, meaning I could go to some websites but not others. This was super obvious since one of the sites that wasn’t working for me was the speed testing site.
I will not even remotely hint that I understand wireless networking, why Windows shows the wireless connection as just fine in one place but not in another, or how this interacts with DNS.
Just sharing what worked for me, since this is a crazy annoying problem and I wanted to have a record of what I did in case it happens again and maybe help somebody else dealing with the same.
Good luck to you!
Incidently, I had to toggle disable/enable and connect/disconnect. It also reverted back later in the day, so evidently this isn’t fully resolved. But at least it helped for a while.