Improving performance and reliability on your computers connected to the Internet.

[Flopper]

I have 4 windows 10 computers and 2 Ipad's connected to my home network which is connected via a gateway to my ISP, Comcast. I have had a number of problems, some being Comcast problems, a bad gateway, and a grandson that totally screwed things up. After about 6 mos. I finally got everything working well. During this time, I found a few things that helped with reliability and performance on my network. Here are a few things that might be helpful to someone.

• Consider Changing your DNS settings in your computer or your gateway/router. Typically the DNS server used by most ISPs are not that good. Comcast is my ISP and they set my gateway to point to a DNS server with an address of 75.75.75.75 with no alternate and no option to change it. However, in Windows and Apple computers you can override your gateway or router DNS settings in the your computer settings. I did this on our windows 10 computers and saw a noticeable change in response time. You can do the same thing on Apple computers. I am now using Google’s public DNS. The address is 8.8.8.8 with their alternate address of 8.8.4.4. It was a big improvement.
• Keep your drivers in your computers up-to-date. By doing so, you will avoid problems. Although you can manually update drivers, doing so is a real pain in the ass because there are many drivers in your computers. I use a product called Drive Easy to keep my drivers up-to-date. It is very easy to use and only takes a few minutes to update all your drivers. There are other products on the market that do this also.
• If you can connect an Ethernet cable between your computer(s) and the router/gateway without too much trouble, do so. You will find it is must faster than wifi and much more reliable.
• If you are using an external network adapter that plugs into a USB jack, and you notice when your computer is idle you lose your connection to the internet, you may need to change setting in the computer. In an attempt to save electric power, windows will cut off power to your network adapter or to your usb bus thus interrupting your session on the Internet. If the computer reconnects when you click on a web address, it may not be that much of a problem. However my experience has been reconnecting is slow and sometime does not happen which requires you reset the adapter or reboot the computer. You can avoid this by adjusting settings in windows power management and the network adapter power settings.
• If you can't get good response time and reliability from your ISP, consider making a change. You can often get better performance and reliability at a lower cost. However, when looking at a new ISP consider carefully the speed they offer. 20Mbps is ok for streaming movies, and email. If you do much surfing the net, then I would get a plan with at least a 40 or 60Mbps speed. If you do much video conferencing, I would get at least 100 Mbps. Higher speed are useful it you do a lot of data transfers or there are many people using your network. The speeds quoted in a plan is the average speed measured at your router. You will get less at your computer. Also if two or more people are using the Internet at the same time, you will need a faster connection. Since it's very difficult to predict what speed you need most people either op for a faster speed or start with a lower speed and then upgrade later if needed. Upgrading is not a problem if your ISP has a faster speed plan. You just have notify your ISP. Generally, you don't have to change anything on your network

Hope this helps someone.

 

[MarathonMike]

I have 4 windows 10 computers and 2 Ipad's connected to my home network which is connected via a gateway to my ISP, Comcast. I have had a number of problems, some being Comcast problems, a bad gateway, and a grandson that totally screwed things up. After about 6 mos. I finally got everything working well. During this time, I found a few things that helped with reliability and performance on my network. Here are a few things that might be helpful to someone.

• Consider Changing your DNS settings in your computer or your gateway/router. Typically the DNS server used by most ISPs are not that good. Comcast is my ISP and they set my gateway to point to a DNS server with an address of 75.75.75.75 with no alternate and no option to change it. However, in Windows and Apple computers you can override your gateway or router DNS settings in the your computer settings. I did this on our windows 10 computers and saw a noticeable change in response time. You can do the same thing on Apple computers. I am now using Google’s public DNS. The address is 8.8.8.8 with their alternate address of 8.8.4.4. It was a big improvement.
• Keep your drivers in your computers up-to-date. By doing so, you will avoid problems. Although you can manually update drivers, doing so is a real pain in the ass because there are many drivers in your computers. I use a product called Drive Easy to keep my drivers up-to-date. It is very easy to use and only takes a few minutes to update all your drivers. There are other products on the market that do this also.
• If you can connect an Ethernet cable between your computer(s) and the router/gateway without too much trouble, do so. You will find it is must faster than wifi and much more reliable.
• If you are using an external network adapter that plugs into a USB jack, and you notice when your computer is idle you lose your connection to the internet, you may need to change setting in the computer. In an attempt to save electric power, windows will cut off power to your network adapter or to your usb bus thus interrupting your session on the Internet. If the computer reconnects when you click on a web address, it may not be that much of a problem. However my experience has been reconnecting is slow and sometime does not happen which requires you reset the adapter or reboot the computer. You can avoid this by adjusting settings in windows power management and the network adapter power settings.
• If you can't get good response time and reliability from your ISP, consider making a change. You can often get better performance and reliability at a lower cost. However, when looking at a new ISP consider carefully the speed they offer. 20Mbps is ok for streaming movies, and email. If you do much surfing the net, then I would get a plan with at least a 40 or 60Mbps speed. If you do much video conferencing, I would get at least 100 Mbps. Higher speed are useful it you do a lot of data transfers or there are many people using your network. The speeds quoted in a plan is the average speed measured at your router. You will get less at your computer. Also if two or more people are using the Internet at the same time, you will need a faster connection. Since it's very difficult to predict what speed you need most people either op for a faster speed or start with a lower speed and then upgrade later if needed. Upgrading is not a problem if your ISP has a faster speed plan. You just have notify your ISP. Generally, you don't have to change anything on your network

Hope this helps someone.

Hey thanks! My internet was pretty good until a couple months ago. Now it seems to stall for 30 seconds or more before a video can play or sometimes I have to close my browser kill the process and restart it. I'll try some of your hints. Not sure if is Windows 11 but I never had this problem with Windows 10.

 

[Flopper]

Hey thanks! My internet was pretty good until a couple months ago. Now it seems to stall for 30 seconds or more before a video can play or sometimes I have to close my browser kill the process and restart it. I'll try some of your hints. Not sure if is Windows 11 but I never had this problem with Windows 10.

I would try changing my DNS Server addresses first as that is very easy. Just remember to write down the current DNS address being used in case there is a problem, you can change it back.

To change the DNS address on Windows 11, open Settings > Network & internet and select Ethernet or Wi-Fi depending on how your computer is connected. Then open the “DNS server assignment” settings and change the DNS address.

 

[ScorpioRising007]

I have 4 windows 10 computers and 2 Ipad's connected to my home network which is connected via a gateway to my ISP, Comcast. I have had a number of problems, some being Comcast problems, a bad gateway, and a grandson that totally screwed things up. After about 6 mos. I finally got everything working well. During this time, I found a few things that helped with reliability and performance on my network. Here are a few things that might be helpful to someone.

• Consider Changing your DNS settings in your computer or your gateway/router. Typically the DNS server used by most ISPs are not that good. Comcast is my ISP and they set my gateway to point to a DNS server with an address of 75.75.75.75 with no alternate and no option to change it. However, in Windows and Apple computers you can override your gateway or router DNS settings in the your computer settings. I did this on our windows 10 computers and saw a noticeable change in response time. You can do the same thing on Apple computers. I am now using Google’s public DNS. The address is 8.8.8.8 with their alternate address of 8.8.4.4. It was a big improvement.
• Keep your drivers in your computers up-to-date. By doing so, you will avoid problems. Although you can manually update drivers, doing so is a real pain in the ass because there are many drivers in your computers. I use a product called Drive Easy to keep my drivers up-to-date. It is very easy to use and only takes a few minutes to update all your drivers. There are other products on the market that do this also.
• If you can connect an Ethernet cable between your computer(s) and the router/gateway without too much trouble, do so. You will find it is must faster than wifi and much more reliable.
• If you are using an external network adapter that plugs into a USB jack, and you notice when your computer is idle you lose your connection to the internet, you may need to change setting in the computer. In an attempt to save electric power, windows will cut off power to your network adapter or to your usb bus thus interrupting your session on the Internet. If the computer reconnects when you click on a web address, it may not be that much of a problem. However my experience has been reconnecting is slow and sometime does not happen which requires you reset the adapter or reboot the computer. You can avoid this by adjusting settings in windows power management and the network adapter power settings.
• If you can't get good response time and reliability from your ISP, consider making a change. You can often get better performance and reliability at a lower cost. However, when looking at a new ISP consider carefully the speed they offer. 20Mbps is ok for streaming movies, and email. If you do much surfing the net, then I would get a plan with at least a 40 or 60Mbps speed. If you do much video conferencing, I would get at least 100 Mbps. Higher speed are useful it you do a lot of data transfers or there are many people using your network. The speeds quoted in a plan is the average speed measured at your router. You will get less at your computer. Also if two or more people are using the Internet at the same time, you will need a faster connection. Since it's very difficult to predict what speed you need most people either op for a faster speed or start with a lower speed and then upgrade later if needed. Upgrading is not a problem if your ISP has a faster speed plan. You just have notify your ISP. Generally, you don't have to change anything on your network

Hope this helps someone.

I prefer to do internet on Linux and Mac. Windows Machines just tend to have too many issues. I love my custom built Linux PC. I seem to have much less internet issues with it than Windows.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

There are so many complaints about Win 10-11 network stalling/freezing on tech forums that you could fill 20 encyclopedias.
Windows is not made for your convenience. It is made to deliver information about you to potential advertisers so Microsoft can sell it.
And it is very difficult to fix. Because Microsoft every single day checks your computer to see if you have disabled things they don't want you to disable - and re-enable them.
Auto-tuning is an example. This is a known issue. It is only on Windows 10-11. It is a program that runs constantly, checking your bandwidth, net delays etc. Every single time you make a new request )click on something) - this app runs first to check your bandwidth. It has issue, it reports bad info, it hangs, and has to reset. Meanwhile you are sitting there wondering why is this page taking so long.
You can disable auto tuning.. and you WILL be faster. But M$ will re-enable it once they see you disabled it.

 

[Flopper]

There are so many complaints about Win 10-11 network stalling/freezing on tech forums that you could fill 20 encyclopedias.
Windows is not made for your convenience. It is made to deliver information about you to potential advertisers so Microsoft can sell it.
And it is very difficult to fix. Because Microsoft every single day checks your computer to see if you have disabled things they don't want you to disable - and re-enable them.
Auto-tuning is an example. This is a known issue. It is only on Windows 10-11. It is a program that runs constantly, checking your bandwidth, net delays etc. Every single time you make a new request )click on something) - this app runs first to check your bandwidth. It has issue, it reports bad info, it hangs, and has to reset. Meanwhile you are sitting there wondering why is this page taking so long.
You can disable auto tuning.. and you WILL be faster. But M$ will re-enable it once they see you disabled it.

There are so many complains because there are so many windows computers. Of course there are going to be a lot because more people use windows.
Just looking at Windows 10, ignoring the many earlier versions that came before it, there are four times more Windows users than Macs. Not only are more people using Windows than Macs but techies who are very vocal on the Internet are more likely to be Windows users.

Window Auto-tuning has been around since Windows Vista so it is not anything really new. In fact it has been used in Mac computers for years but there is no way to turn it off.

Auto-tuning can improve the efficiency of TCP by about 20%. It uses a router feature that became available about 15 years ago. Auto Tuning also uses more memory and disk pace. So if you have an ancient router or your computer is very short on memory or disk space, you should turn it off, otherwise it should be left alone. This is what Microsoft as well as many network engineers advise.

Personally, I like Mac computers as they are very well made and relatively problem free. I don't like the fact that they are typically 25% to 30% more expensive than comparable windows computers and I hate their policies of adding and changing feature with every new IOS release. My beef with Microsoft is they push their products and upgrades too much. I like Chrome, I plan to keep using it. Yet nearly everyday, somehow I find myself unintentionally on their Edge browser. When my version of Windows Office went out of support, they deleted all the Help files which were on the Internet and the aux. fonts. They wanted me to upgrade, so I did. I moved everything to Google Docs.

In regard to data collection both Apple and Microsoft do it and you can stop it on both platforms. However, you can not cut off diagnostics of the operating systems which do not contain any personal data.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

There are so many complains because there are so many windows computers. Of course there are going to be a lot because more people use windows.
Just looking at Windows 10, ignoring the many earlier versions that came before it, there are four times more Windows users than Macs. Not only are more people using Windows than Macs but techies who are very vocal on the Internet are more likely to be Windows users.

Window Auto-tuning has been around since Windows Vista so it is not anything really new. In fact it has been used in Mac computers for years but there is no way to turn it off.

Auto-tuning can improve the efficiency of TCP by about 20%. It uses a router feature that became available about 15 years ago. Auto Tuning also uses more memory and disk pace. So if you have an ancient router or your computer is very short on memory or disk space, you should turn it off, otherwise it should be left alone. This is what Microsoft as well as many network engineers advise.

Personally, I like Mac computers as they are very well made and relatively problem free. I don't like the fact that they are typically 25% to 30% more expensive than comparable windows computers and I hate their policies of adding and changing feature with every new IOS release. My beef with Microsoft is they push their products and upgrades too much. I like Chrome, I plan to keep using it. Yet nearly everyday, somehow I find myself unintentionally on their Edge browser. When my version of Windows Office went out of support, they deleted all the Help files which were on the Internet and the aux. fonts. They wanted me to upgrade, so I did. I moved everything to Google Docs.

In regard to data collection both Apple and Microsoft do it and you can stop it on both platforms. However, you can not cut off diagnostics of the operating systems which do not contain any personal data.

Google is good for searching and retyping what you read.
The problem with Windows and speed is in order for a Windows PC to be fast enough - you need monstrous memory. Ridiculous amounts of RAM. And the reason why is Windows constantly has a parade of applications running in the background. Many are 100% unnecessary to be running constantly. It is the only OS that does this to the degree it does it.
My laptop has 8 GB of RAM. Right now the only application I have running is Chrome.
Chrome is using right at 10% of memory. Windows is using 61%.. It is hogging nearlly 5 GB of RAM just sitting here. And that is normal. It will consume over 80% at times. So if you are doing anything at ALL processer heavy - with 8GB of RAM you will be slow.
That is absurd.
A Mac running 8 GB of RAM will have zero problems like that. I have an iMac in design at the office. I can be running InDesign/Photoshop/Illustrator/Safari/Fusion Pro all at the same time and not have any issues. On a PC you would need a minimum of 32 GB RAM to do that. Minimum.
Linux can run blazing fast with 4 GB RAM.
It all comes down to Microsoft being Microsoft. They put all needs of their OS well ahead of your needs. Any M$ app that wants to run will do so immediately no matter what you are doing and M$ will give precedent to their background apps over yours 100% of the time.
MAC and Linux do not do that.

 

[Flopper]

Google is good for searching and retyping what you read.
The problem with Windows and speed is in order for a Windows PC to be fast enough - you need monstrous memory. Ridiculous amounts of RAM. And the reason why is Windows constantly has a parade of applications running in the background. Many are 100% unnecessary to be running constantly. It is the only OS that does this to the degree it does it.
My laptop has 8 GB of RAM. Right now the only application I have running is Chrome.
Chrome is using right at 10% of memory. Windows is using 61%.. It is hogging nearlly 5 GB of RAM just sitting here. And that is normal. It will consume over 80% at times. So if you are doing anything at ALL processer heavy - with 8GB of RAM you will be slow.
That is absurd.
A Mac running 8 GB of RAM will have zero problems like that. I have an iMac in design at the office. I can be running InDesign/Photoshop/Illustrator/Safari/Fusion Pro all at the same time and not have any issues. On a PC you would need a minimum of 32 GB RAM to do that. Minimum.
Linux can run blazing fast with 4 GB RAM.

It all comes down to Microsoft being Microsoft. They put all needs of their OS well ahead of your needs. Any M$ app that wants to run will do so immediately no matter what you are doing and M$ will give precedent to their background apps over yours 100% of the time.

MAC and Linux do not do that.

I really can't comment on Linux as I know nothing about it. I use a Macbook, and a Windows desktop computer that I built about 5 years ago, actually I rebuilt it using the same case and power supply. I like the Mac when traveling because it so light and easy to use but I like the Windows desktop for gaming and tinkering. Both memory and disk storage has become so cheap and so easy to upgrade, I'm not really concerned about memory or disk storage.

BTW if you are interested in reducing Windows resource usage there are quite a few Windows Services that can be easily disabled such as their crappy virus protection, biometric services, etc.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

I really can't comment of Linux as I know nothing about it. I use a Macbook, and a Windows desktop computer that I built about 5 years ago, actually I rebuilt it using the same case and power supply. I like the Mac when traveling because it so light and easy to use but I like the Windows desktop for gaming and tinkering. Both memory and disk storage has become so cheap and so easy to upgrade, I'm not really concerned about memory or disk storage.

BTW if you are interested in reducing Windows resource usage there are quite few Windows Services that can be easier disabled such as their crappy virus protection, biometric services, etc.

Prior to Win10 it was very easy to shutdown Windows telemetry and not needed programs.
After Win 10 it is a losing battle.
Like I said, and readily supported by articles all over the internet from widely known publications, Windows 10-11 will simply turn the programs back on after a reboot... in the middle of the night. They will reboot your computer themselves.
Also - widely published, applications running like "Windows teams" - you can shut the program off. But programmers have show the program will still run, but M$ hides it from the task manager even if you are logged in as Admin.

 

[Flopper]

Prior to Win10 it was very easy to shutdown Windows telemetry and not needed programs.
After Win 10 it is a losing battle.
Like I said, and readily supported by articles all over the internet from widely known publications, Windows 10-11 will simply turn the programs back on after a reboot... in the middle of the night. They will reboot your computer themselves.
Also - widely published, applications running like "Windows teams" - you can shut the program off. But programmers have show the program will still run, but M$ hides it from the task manager even if you are logged in as Admin.

If you stop a service, it will be enabled when you restart the computer. If you disable it then it will remain disabled when you boot. However services may be enable if you use a function that requires that service. If you have set on automatic update of windows, it will turn on any service that is required. I'm sure the same holds true with other settings. Apple does not allow users to disable services that the OS may need. I don't know why Microsoft allows users to do this. I can only guess that it's trying to reman compatible with previous versions of Windows.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

If you stop a service, it will be enabled when you restart the computer. If you disable it then it will remain disabled when you boot. However services may be enable if you use a function that requires that service. If you have set on automatic update of windows, it will turn on any service that is required. I'm sure the same holds true with other settings. Apple does not allow users to disable services that the OS may need. I don't know why Microsoft allows users to do this. I can only guess that it's trying to reman compatible with previous versions of Windows.

Sorry Flopper, that is simply not true.
After the 2nd or 3rd update in Win 10, Microsoft started re-enabling programs that you disable.
Some of their telemetry programs are not listed in the taskmanager at all.
Currently stopping all of M$ telemetry is a 7 step process, and requires command line coding.
It can be done. But even after you go through all of that - it will reenable all of it again when the computer restarts - and whether you have it disabled or not doesn't matter.

 

[Flopper]

Sorry Flopper, that is simply not true.
After the 2nd or 3rd update in Win 10, Microsoft started re-enabling programs that you disable.
Some of their telemetry programs are not listed in the taskmanager at all.
Currently stopping all of M$ telemetry is a 7 step process, and requires command line coding.
It can be done. But even after you go through all of that - it will reenable all of it again when the computer restarts - and whether you have it disabled or not doesn't matter

I looked into turning off telemetry and it is a bit complicated. Also, I read that turning off telemetry can cause problems in updating windows. Looking at what is actually transmitted, I have no reason to turn off.

In Windows 10 and 11 information about the device, it’s setting, and capability and whether it is performing properly will always be transmitted via telemetry. Optionally, in privacy settings you can allow the transmission of websites you browse, plus additional information on device health, device activity, enhanced error reporting. Incidentally Apple does the same thing.

If you are really concerned you can download a data viewer so you see exactly what is being transmitted.