Nowadays Internet is an important part of a social life. We use internet more and more.
A lot of people notice that at first internet is running fast, but over time they notice that downloading a webpage or a file is not as fast as it used to be. In other words: internet is running slow.
In this article we are going to discuss what the possible causes are of making internet slow and how you can fix it. This solutions provided in this article are intended for computer users. So here you will not find solutions for a slow internet for mobile phones.
What factors makes internet running slow?
There are several factors in your computer that may affect the internet speed.
Most of the time internet related problems are caused the computer has not been maintained properly or because on the computer a lot of spyware or adware are running. But a factor that can make your internet speed go down is a wrong driver update.
Limited free disk space makes internet running slow
All websites that you visit on the internet, all videos that you listen or movies that you watch are downloaded to your hard disk before you can see access them.
So to see the content of a webpage you need free disk space. These internet files that are downloaded to your computer are also called “Temporary internet files”. You web browser manages those temporary internet files, when there is not much free disk space left it will remove as much as temporary file as possible.
This makes your internet running slow in two ways:
- Temporary internet files makes a second visit of the same website faster, as the content of the webpage is already downloaded. So if all temporary internet files are deleted from your hard disk you cannot profit from this feature.
- If you are downloading a webpage or a file your computer is writing the data to the disk. As the hard disk is almost full, the processor must also be used to clean up temporary internet files, making your computer running slow with as a result a slow internet.
A clean disk is important, not only for a good internet speed also for a good PC performance.
You can read on the page: computer clean-up how to maintain your PC.
Wrong driver update
Which part of the computer enables you for getting data from the internet? You are right! A network card, which can be a network card for a standard Ethernet connection or a WIFI connection. Network cards are controlled by drivers, a driver is a small piece of software which allow the software to communicate with the hardware and from the hardware to the software again.
During software or hardware updated, like for example a Windows update, those network drivers can be updated. Normally an update has a positive effect, but it can happen that the new installed driver is conflicting with some other software on your computer (driver conflict).
When a driver is not working correctly the communication between hardware and software is not working fine, making your internet running slow.
Problems related to driver updates can be easily be prevented or solved by using a good driver scanner, like for instance PC Health Advisor. This software analyzes and detects driver conflicts and fixes them for you. You can make a free scan of your system with Pc Health Advisor to see if your computer is having problems. You can download Pc Health Advisor here.
Hard disk fragmentation make internet running slow
Using the internet can make your hard disk fragmented? Yes! What a lot people do not realize is the amount of files that are downloaded when visiting one single webpage. It can be over hundreds of files, each file is a very small one, but at the end the number of files downloaded is enormous.
These files, also called temporary internet files are created and deleted on a high frequency. And as you might know, creating and deleting files causes a fragmentation of your hard disk.
A fragmented hard disk makes not only your computer very slow it makes also internet running slow. Check out the page: computer clean-up, where you can find an explanation on how to defragment your hard disk.
Virus and spy- and adware
A famous internet speed killer: virus and or spyware. Everybody knows that a virus makes your internet running slow. But also spyware and adware are responsible for that, as those types of malware are sending constantly over the internet information about your computer or about your computer and internet usage. So it is important to have your computer free of any these kinds of malware. What can you to determine if your PC is infected? Download this virus scanner: SpyHunter which offers a free scan.
In this article you have seen three possible causes that can make your internet running slow.
Most of the times you can fix the problem by cleaning up your hard disk. But sometimes the problems are a bit more complicated and you need a tool to fix your problem (a virus scanner or a driver scanner). If you still have any questions, please leave a comment below.