# Why does it take SO long to access web pages?



## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

I have Comcrap's Blast service and every speed test shows a consistent 40-50 megs down and 6-10 megs up. I've checked my PC for spyware, malware, and everything else. Everything shows up squeaky clean and free from any malware. Despite this, at many times during the day, especially late night between 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. CDT, whenever I enter the URL for a website, it takes me a very long time to get to that site's home page and navigate through it.

I started timing it the last couple days. It is taking anywhere from 3 to over 5 *minutes *for web pages to load. This is absolutely unacceptable. It's just like the days of dial-up.

I've used Open DNS, Google's DNS, and other similar options, but those don't make a difference. With or without that, I'm still waiting forever to access web pages. BTW, it doesn't matter what web site it is, either. News sites like WGNTV.com; retail sites like Amazon; social sites; forums--all of them take forever.

Any idea what can be the cause of this? Comcrap people seem baffled.

BTW, I'm connected via hardwire, direct connection. When I thought the problem was my router (a newer wireless G and N one, too, BTW), I decided to connect my PC directly via a Cat 6 cable. That didn't matter, it seems.


----------



## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Have you tried plugging the PC directly into the Comcast modem? Tried running a ping test to the websites? Sure sounds like a DNS problem, or an issue with your ad skip plugin, if you use one.


----------



## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

Yeah, I did that, too. Ping tests showed OK, and direct connection to the modem didn't make a difference.


----------



## Marlin Guy (Apr 8, 2009)

This sounds like a Malware issue.


----------



## CCarncross (Jul 19, 2005)

Just re-image the pc....


----------



## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

Lord Vader said:


> I have Comcrap's Blast service and every speed test shows a consistent 40-50 megs down and 6-10 megs up.
> 
> Any idea what can be the cause of this? Comcrap people seem baffled.


 

It's not Comcrap, it's you. 50dn/10up is two angels short of miraculous. Pehaps, if you would stop calling Comcast comcrap, websites would load faster. My experience with Comcast is, and has been excellent for the past five years or so.

It's not your father's comcrap, so stop with the cheapshot name-calling.


----------



## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

It's one of two things - 
1 - your PC. If you have access to another PC, try it out. If it's better - reimage (i.e. reload the whole computer from scratch - starting with the OS)

2 - your cable provider maybe be oversold at the moment. There is nothing you can do about this one.


----------



## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

First of all, does this occur across multiple browsers? Does this occur across multiple computers in the same network? Have you gone into Internet Options -> Connections -> Lan Settings and made sure Proxies are not set? Have you done a power cycle of your modem?


----------



## nn8l (Sep 7, 2007)

You can also enter 74.125.228.7 in the address bar to see if you have the same problem. Don't put the http://www in there. This is a direct address to google.com. If that address goes there quickly then you have a DNS problem. If it still takes a long time to get the page then its not a DNS problem.


----------



## RasputinAXP (Jan 23, 2008)

Malware. Maybe if you hadn't been up so late internetting this wouldn't have happened.


----------



## JcT21 (Nov 30, 2004)

Lord Vader said:


> I have Comcrap's Blast service and every speed test shows a consistent 40-50 megs down and 6-10 megs up. I've checked my PC for spyware, malware, and everything else. Everything shows up squeaky clean and free from any malware. Despite this, at many times during the day, especially late night between 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. CDT, whenever I enter the URL for a website, it takes me a very long time to get to that site's home page and navigate through it.
> 
> I started timing it the last couple days. It is taking anywhere from 3 to over 5 *minutes *for web pages to load. This is absolutely unacceptable. It's just like the days of dial-up.
> 
> ...


i have tested everything you have. i still have this problem with at&t dsl 6.0 service. currently using ie9. some sites load just fine and at times dbstalk.com takes forever to load the forums. when i see its taking a while i close the browser and try again. the 2nd or 3rd time around is usually faster. i have scanned with kaspersky, eset and use malwarebytes & scanned with windows defender... i even re-installed windows and the problem persists, but i noticed it does it after all the updates and pataches are installed. i like to keep a clean pc & im always up to date on everything security wise. changed dns settings several times, doesnt fix it. 

if you find a solution, please share!


----------



## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

> Despite this, at many times during the day, especially late night between 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. CDT,


During the slowdowns, have you tried a speed test? Results?

Outside the slowdowns, how do pages load?

What is your neighborhood like? High or low concentration of households.

Cable is a shared node type system. If somebody close to you (or several somebodies) does something that creates a load on the system, you can see a slowdown. Normally, what you request from the web is like passing grains of sand through a firehose. Lots of them can pass at the same time with no congestion. But consider what would happen if you tried to send several softballs through the same firehose at the same time.


----------



## dmspen (Dec 1, 2006)

Try using a browser with ALL add-ins disabled.
If that fails, use Malwarebytes and clean your PC.


----------



## prozone1 (Sep 22, 2007)

Try using a Mac


----------



## John Strk (Oct 16, 2009)

Lord Vader said:


> Any idea what can be the cause of this? Comcrap people seem baffled.


Has Comcrap :lol:, actually come out yet to troubleshoot it? They might be baffled on the phone and claim there are no issues on their end, but you might want to get them out there to double check everything. Whenever I've had serious slow downs like this from them in the past, I had them come out and it was always something they had to fix with the connection or in my neighborhood and NOT related to my PC.

Good luck!


----------



## billsharpe (Jan 25, 2007)

Firefox can become a huge memory hog if you have many addons installed and leave it running all the time.

You don't mention what browser you are using, but I'd check out Chrome, which seems to load pages on my computer much faster than Firerfox.


----------



## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

While it can be something within your own system, I too have experienced delays, sometimes involving a few hours accessing a number of different sites. What I have discovered is that sometimes whether it's the target web site or the ad feed servers they use, routing through the internet is sending me into heavy traffic or through some server group that isn't working right.

I either use PC Pitstop's Trace Route Utility web site or, if I know the IP address of the site I'm trying to reach, I use a command prompt "tracert" to see where the delay is in the routing.

That, of course, doesn't do anything for me other than allow me to shrug it off. But sometimes, the problem is in Comcast's system so I can complain and thereby receive a "gee, we're surely sorry" form email.


----------



## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

Marlin Guy said:


> This sounds like a Malware issue.


Every malware program I've run comes back clean as can be.


----------



## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

nn8l said:


> You can also enter 74.125.228.7 in the address bar to see if you have the same problem. Don't put the http://www in there. This is a direct address to google.com. If that address goes there quickly then you have a DNS problem. If it still takes a long time to get the page then its not a DNS problem.


It goes there instantly.



SayWhat? said:


> During the slowdowns, have you tried a speed test? Results?
> 
> Outside the slowdowns, how do pages load?


Yes, all speed tests show very fast speeds with excellent Ping test results.



> What is your neighborhood like? High or low concentration of households.


It's an apartment building, and late at night, there often is not much running when I check available networks just to see what's around.



dmspen said:


> Try using a browser with ALL add-ins disabled.
> If that fails, use Malwarebytes and clean your PC.


I've disabled most of my add-ins and Malwarebytes shows nothing abnormal.



John Strk said:


> Has Comcrap :lol:, actually come out yet to troubleshoot it? They might be baffled on the phone and claim there are no issues on their end, but you might want to get them out there to double check everything. Whenever I've had serious slow downs like this from them in the past, I had them come out and it was always something they had to fix with the connection or in my neighborhood and NOT related to my PC.
> 
> Good luck!


Yes, and they said everything's fine.



billsharpe said:


> Firefox can become a huge memory hog if you have many addons installed and leave it running all the time.
> 
> You don't mention what browser you are using, but I'd check out Chrome, which seems to load pages on my computer much faster than Firerfox.


I use Firefox most of the time and IE some of the time. Both are experiencing the same problem.


----------



## Doug Brott (Jul 12, 2006)

Quantcast


----------



## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

"Lord Vader" said:
 

> It goes there instantly.
> 
> Yes, all speed tests show very fast speeds with excellent Ping test results.
> 
> ...


Okay, so when using the IP address it gets to Google fast. Did you do that when you had a slowdown when tying to use google.com? If so, that would indicate a DNS issue somewhere along the way.

- Merg


----------



## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

Yes, and I agree it sounds like a DNS issue. Now I just have to figure out how to resolve that.


----------



## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

Possibly change the DNS within your router. I would also ask if you have an older PC with limited memory. Today's newer browsers are very memory-intensive.


----------



## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

No, actually, I just bought this Dell last July. It's a fairly high end desktop. BTW, I have been and am still using Open DNS. Any suggestions as to trying something else?


----------



## bobnielsen (Jun 29, 2006)

I often have things hang when accessing web pages. It seems that the embedded links to ads are part of the problem and a retry will often work. For DNS issues I did see an improvement by using Google's DNS (8.8.8.8).


----------



## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

I'll give that a try.


----------



## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

I'm really not a fan of Open DNS as they are attempting to be more than a DNS service. I'd go with google or another free DNS service. Very few ISP's actually lock their DNS to stop connections from people outside of their network. I still use a DNS from a local ISP in IL as my tertiary just in case there's issues with mine.

8.8.8.8 is the primary and 8.8.4.4 is the secondary although technically it doesn't matter which you use it's just how they designate it.


----------



## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

If you go to the same sites alot, there's a couple things to try -

1. put the IP addresses in your %windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file

2. Download and install your own caching DNS server (such as treewalk)

The site admins may not like to hear this - but I do ad blocking by putting many of the common ad sites in my hosts file, and they are set to 127.0.0.1 (home). That also should help if it is the ad sites that are slowing you down. As a result, my hosts file is about 200K bytes.


----------



## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

You know, I am beginning to believe that the common ad sites are part of the problem. I notice this while waiting for the web site to load. In the lower left corner it always says something like "waiting for..." and what it's waiting for always has some ad-like name to it.


----------



## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

I wonder if you blocked some of those "waiting for" domains from your firewall, or looked into Firefox's ad blocking add-ons, what would happen.


----------



## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

Hmmmm.... I would try the following:

- Reset the DNS to your ISPs DNS
- Run CCleaner to clear out the cache and optimize the DBs in Firefox
- Run Firefox in Safe Mode. This will disable all of your extensions.
- See if the issue is isolated to Firefox, Chrome, or Internet Explorer


----------



## Marlin Guy (Apr 8, 2009)

I've had sites load more slowly with the waiting for ad site status as well in Chrome. Nothing's ever taken 5 minutes, but there have been delays.

Good advice above.
A Linux live CD or USB could also be helpful in isolating the problem.


----------



## RasputinAXP (Jan 23, 2008)

Or a good adblocker.


----------



## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

Shades228 said:


> I'm really not a fan of Open DNS as they are attempting to be more than a DNS service.


Which may not be all that bad if they're blocking bad stuff.



> 8.8.8.8 is the primary and 8.8.4.4 is the secondary


Wasn't that long ago that somebody here said not to use two from the same service. I think I'm using one OpenDNS and one Level 3.


----------



## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

I'm having a similar problem, but only on one of the six computers we have in our home. I'm having the problem on a Lenovo laptop, a G770 model. When I try to load a web page, sometimes I get a dialog box that tells me the page can't be loaded and to try again. Sometimes it takes forever to get a page to load. But, only on this one computer. 

I just put in the 8888 and 8844 numbers in for my DNS and noticed that both IPv4 and IPv6 were checked. Is this normal or should I only have one checked and if so, which? I know it's not my ISP's fault, I know the problem is restricted to this computer only. 

Putting the 8888 and 8844 seems to have solved the problem right now. I need an answer to the above question about IPv4 and IPv6. Should both or one of them be checked? If one should be checked, and the other disabled, which should be checked? I'm running System 7.

Rich


----------



## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Shades228 said:


> I'm really not a fan of Open DNS as they are attempting to be more than a DNS service. I'd go with google or another free DNS service. Very few ISP's actually lock their DNS to stop connections from people outside of their network. I still use a DNS from a local ISP in IL as my tertiary just in case there's issues with mine.
> 
> 8.8.8.8 is the primary and 8.8.4.4 is the secondary although technically it doesn't matter which you use it's just how they designate it.


That seems to have helped a lot. Thanx.

Rich


----------



## Doug Brott (Jul 12, 2006)

scooper said:


> If you go to the same sites alot, there's a couple things to try -
> 
> 1. put the IP addresses in your %windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file
> 
> ...


Putting ad sites IP #'s in the windows hosts file is one thing, but using the hosts file for real sites, particularly ones you access often is a really bad idea. While they may not change IPs often, when they do, you'll very likely go crazy trying to figure out where the problem is.


----------



## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

Doug Brott said:


> Putting ad sites IP #'s in the windows hosts file is one thing, but using the hosts file for real sites, particularly ones you access often is a really bad idea. While they may not change IPs often, when they do, you'll very likely go crazy trying to figure out where the problem is.


I'm quite well aware it is not an ideal solution - that was why I suggested running your own caching DNS servicer as well.

There have been a number of good suggestions in this thread, however.

Website covering using the Hosts file to block ads - http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm


----------



## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

I'm out of town until Sunday night & will give some of these suggestions a try then.


----------



## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

Rich said:


> I'm having a similar problem, but only on one of the six computers we have in our home. I'm having the problem on a Lenovo laptop, a G770 model. When I try to load a web page, sometimes I get a dialog box that tells me the page can't be loaded and to try again. Sometimes it takes forever to get a page to load. But, only on this one computer.
> 
> I just put in the 8888 and 8844 numbers in for my DNS and noticed that both IPv4 and IPv6 were checked. Is this normal or should I only have one checked and if so, which? I know it's not my ISP's fault, I know the problem is restricted to this computer only.
> 
> ...


Having both ipv4 and ipv6 checked won't matter so just leave them as is. ipv6 is really far away at this point however if you somehow have an isp that sets up ipv6 and get a website that has ipv6 enabled it will work through that.

Glad to hear that changing DNS servers helped your issue. I warn everyone away from Open DNS now as they're really trying to become a "safeguard" service even to people who don't want it.


----------



## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Shades228 said:


> Having both ipv4 and ipv6 checked won't matter so just leave them as is. ipv6 is really far away at this point however if you somehow have an isp that sets up ipv6 and get a website that has ipv6 enabled it will work through that.
> 
> Glad to hear that changing DNS servers helped your issue. I warn everyone away from Open DNS now as they're really trying to become a "safeguard" service even to people who don't want it.


Great! I'll put IPv6 back in place. Changing the DNS server to 8888 & 8844 seems to have helped very much. Thanx.

Rich


----------



## Getteau (Dec 20, 2007)

Just to add another data point, I see this issue a lot with this site, Huffington Post and Daily Caller (it could be that I hit those 3 sites the most often and they also have the most ads).

Lately, I have been seeing it a lot on DBSTALK. A few times a day, I'll come to this site and I'll get the top of the web page that shows the Home/Forums/UserCP... tabs and then nothing else for several minutes. 9 times out of 10, when I see the issue, it's because the website is having issues loading the 8 million ad's (I know they are a necessary evil to support the website). I've started placing the domains for the ad sites in my "restricted sites' in AD and it seems to have helped a little. It also seems to have fixed the history issue in IE where the Ad sites take over the history and I can't use the back button.


----------



## wilbur_the_goose (Aug 16, 2006)

1. See if Google's Chrome browser performs any better.
2. Do you have a smartphone/tablet that can connect to your home network? How does its speed compare to your PC?

Check add-ins - many can REALLY slow down a browser.
Is your Java up to date?
Did you reimage your disk when you reinstalled Windows? 
Have you defragmented your hard drive?
How much memory do you have?

We'll get you there


----------



## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

Hmm -

Problem seems to be centered on www.quantcast.com and
google-analytics.com

Same issue with Chrome, as well as Firefox, BUT - doesn't seem to be present using Opera .

Hope this helps.


----------



## RasputinAXP (Jan 23, 2008)

"Shades228" said:


> ipv6 is really far away at this point


LOL! Says you. We're been advertising our IPv6 net for over a year and preparing to deploy campiswide this fall.


----------



## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

RasputinAXP said:


> LOL! Says you. We're been advertising our IPv6 net for over a year and preparing to deploy campiswide this fall.


A private network isn't even a blip on the radar when it comes to adoption of this level of technology. There's no reason to go ipv6 at this point unless you're a company that has an investment in it or you just happen to have your lifecycles setup so that getting all new equipment now was planned and ipv6 support is just a bonus.


----------



## RasputinAXP (Jan 23, 2008)

Mostly the second. Our core network was reaching EOL so deploying the IPv6 stuff we had was icing on the cake.


----------



## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Putting in the Google DNS works for a while and then it's back to pages not loading quickly or not loading at all. When it slows up, I've been going back to the DNS page and hitting the Validate check box. Each time I go back that box is unchecked, but the 8888 and 8844 are still there. Each time I go back, the computer loads pages correctly and then slows down again after a while. I must be doing something wrong?

Rich


----------



## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

There are so many variables it can be just about anything. Is it universal across all sites?

Try testing the site with http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/ or http://webwait.com/ and see if it's universal.

The largest issues usually revolve around cache, add ons/extensions, and bad settings. Usually these are due to people wanting to restrict things like ads and scripts. This can cause issues when websites require them to be loaded before loading the final page. Facebook stuff is notorious for slowing down sites especially on older browsers like ie8/7.

If you use multiple browsers make sure that you use different cache directories.

You have changed the DNS server in your modem/router correct not just on the computer?


----------



## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Shades228 said:


> There are so many variables it can be just about anything. Is it universal across all sites?
> 
> Try testing the site with http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/ or http://webwait.com/ and see if it's universal.
> 
> ...


I just changed the settings on the router. The problem I have with doing that is the laptop I'm using now is the only one of the six computers in the house that has this problem. If it works, I guess I'll have to change all the computers to the same DNS settings?

Rich


----------



## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

Your computers should pull the DNS from the DHCP settings on the router so it will update them all unless you have static ips setup or have manually configured everything on those computers.


----------



## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Shades228 said:


> Your computers should pull the DNS from the DHCP settings on the router so it will update them all unless you have static ips setup or have manually configured everything on those computers.


It's probably been a couple years since I switched to static IP addresses and I think all my computers are newer than that, so I should be good. I kinda figured it had something to do with my router, I was staying in a 12 story condominium on the beach in Ocean City, MD a couple weeks ago and I had no problems loading pages on their Wi-Fi setup.

So, if I were to set up a whole new set of static IP addresses, I'd have to enter the Google DNS into each computer, I assume? Easy enough to do, now that I know how to do it. I really need to reset all my static IP addresses.

Appreciate all the help, I was lost... :nono2:

Rich


----------



## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

It's your network but with advancements in DHCP static ip addresses aren't really needed like they were before. At the most I just recommend people go in and reserve the ip of the device they want to keep the same in the router. 

For instance I have my phone as a set ip so that when I ftp into it I don't have to look up the ip. I also reserve couple of computers that need specific port forwarding. 

However for the average user now you can use DHCP and UPNP. While there are some potential security issues with UPNP people are still more likely to be compromised due to their own error than someone initiating an attack designed for UPNP on them.

So I guess at most I would keep DHCP setup and then just reserve every device you have so it never changes IP's but it will still get all of it's settings from the router. This makes changes easier in the future.


----------

