Videos Extremely Slow on LAN Connection

[nrs3b]

Hello all:

I am currently living in a dormitory in Germany. I was given a cord to connect to the LAN on the wall, as there is no free wi-fi in this dormitory. A few days ago, Youtube videos and other videos played just fine, as usual.

Now, however, it takes 30 minutes to load 5 minutes of a Youtube video. I'm not exaggerating. Anything I can do? I'm wondering if it's just because there are more people in my dorm now or if I did something to my computer (which is probably unlikely since I know nothing about computers).

-R

 

[rsedgarroman]

what anti-virus are you using? Sometimes the Anti-Virus program filters network streams and scans the stream which can take a long time or not display the video at all.

 

[cyclic]

Yes it could be, if it's a shared connection the bandwidth remains constant and therefore is shared. More people use it, less is available. It's an arcane system but we seem to be stuck with it.
If you could convince the people who own or manage the Dorm to 'up' the supply with their ISP, that would be good.

Otherwise I'm afraid you will have to try to avoid heavy usage periods to get things to stream properly.

 

[Influx]

In addition to the above suggestion, please run Resource Monitor and navigate to the network Tab. Sort processes by network usage, then identify suspicious activity.

 

[nrs3b]

I am using Microsoft Security Essentials (?) and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. I think I need to renew my subscription to Malwarebytes. Could that be what's wrong?

 

[Influx]

I am using Microsoft Security Essentials (?) and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. I think I need to renew my subscription to Malwarebytes. Could that be what's wrong?

You do not need to purchase Malware Bytes, if you are not going to enable real-time protection. Microsoft Security Essentials is free. As far as I know, the only main difference with the paid version of MalwareBytes and the free version, is the real time protection feature in the paid version. This isn't essential, your antivirus should generally protect your computer. Malware Bytes is typically for thorough scans.