why is one laptop hogging all the bandwidth?

[Dupont666]

Scenario is my and the OH have a Laptop each:

1x Macbook white 2.4GHz and 2GB RAM
1x HP X6125 800Hz 512MB RAM << 5years old (with XP)

I have a cisco router 871W

http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?q=Cisco+8...fficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=10444577350099059310&ei=OBnIS9HWHJLymQOAquHpDA&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CB0Q8wIwAg#ps-sellers

when I have my Mac hooked up I get very respectable speeds (200-300 kb/s) which I reasonably happy with.

When OH plugs in her POS it drops and I have a near non existant connection, first of all it was due to her opening up firefox and 28 previous tabs, that was cut down to a managable level...

Managable to her was 6-8, which I went and shut it down to 1 or 2 tabs allowed on start up and whilst running.

Yet I still have this issue that as soon as her POS is hooked up, the chance of me downloading any updates for the mac or software is non existant.

Can anyone think of any suggestions, other than replace the POS as that is another issue Im working on at the moment and eventually her old laptop will be used as a door stop.

I want to put a limit on its bandwidth to stop it doing a hog it all whilst the POS is thinking about how it is going to process the website, etc.

Oh and instructions will need to be clear as she has it set to finnish which is a PITA for me to remember from memory when fixing her laptop.

Cheers

[bholleran]

Might be that her laptop is doing windows updates. I have noticed quite a few on lots of OS's over the last few days.

So you could try turning off windows updates for a bit and see if that helps. Or if it doing them just let them finish.

[Chimune]

Could be a virus. Re-install firefox / see if IE does it too.
Give both devices a static ip. Get your Cisco manual out and see if you can enable bandwidth throttling on the router.

[Scraggles]

worth just having 1 tab on startup, checking for bit torrent and wireless is secure >

[Dupont666]

bholleran said:

Might be that her laptop is doing windows updates. I have noticed quite a few on lots of OS's over the last few days.

So you could try turning off windows updates for a bit and see if that helps. Or if it doing them just let them finish.

It has just started happening... only about 3-4 days now.

How do you turn off the auto update?

Its not IE, I banned her from using that pile of junk as all I could hear was swearing and whinging about how slow it was, so I uninstalled it and put firefox on it... she was happier then.

Also I need a very very light weight virus program for her PC... the last one was hogging all the processor which meant boot up to a usable system was 10-15 mins, this was cut to sub 2 mins when the virus software was removed...

It was a no brainer as I promised to buy a new laptop if she got a virus and she still hasnt got on yet, but now the 'maybe its a virus' noises have started again... and 'you took it off and now its slow so its definately a virus'...

[AlexC1981]

I have Avast! Antivirus on a desktop with the same spec as your OH's laptop and there is no appreciable slow down when it's running (I configured it to start from an icon). It's got Win98 on it though which probably helps on such a low spec machine.

[LordGrover]

Lightweight AV I'd use MS Security Essentials.

ETA: Click.

Edited by LordGrover on Friday 16th April 10:34

[eps]

QoS?

It might be a problem with the wifi connection manager the Windows laptop is using..

[Dupont666]

eps said:

QoS?

It might be a problem with the wifi connection manager the Windows laptop is using..

What kind of problem and how can I see it baring in mind its all in finnish and the owner aint a techie

[recalluk]

Vipre is an excellent lightweight AV ... costs tho.

[eps]

Dupont666 said:

eps said:

QoS?

It might be a problem with the wifi connection manager the Windows laptop is using..

What kind of problem and how can I see it baring in mind its all in finnish and the owner aint a techie

We seemed to have a similar problem, I just googled "wi fi connection dropping" or something similar and it indicated that this could be the problem.


XP Pro or Home?

ETA : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/870702 although that would seem to be the other way round to the problem you're describing..

I would look at QoS on the router.

Edited by eps on Friday 16th April 11:29

[Dupont666]

eps said:

Dupont666 said:

eps said:

QoS?

It might be a problem with the wifi connection manager the Windows laptop is using..

What kind of problem and how can I see it baring in mind its all in finnish and the owner aint a techie

We seemed to have a similar problem, I just googled "wi fi connection dropping" or something similar and it indicated that this could be the problem.


XP Pro or Home?

It is XP Home edition version 2002, service pack 3

[eps]

QoS enabled/setup?? http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11...