# Windows 10 kills my internet speed?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-10-kills-my-internet-speed/741444
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [December 27, 2015, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-10-kills-my-internet-speed/741444 "2015-12-27T02:18:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2015, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-10-kills-my-internet-speed/741444/1 "2015-12-27T02:18:24Z")
Question for the PC gurus: I have a bunch of computers running on the same WiFi network to my single broadband connection. As soon as I installed Windows 10 on my main laptop, its internet connectivity slowed way the hell down! All the other computers remained fine. I just did a side by side test with [www.speedtest.net](http://www.speedtest.net) and here is what I got:
Very old XP computer: 4.11 Mbps down, 0.93 Mbps up
Samsung Android tablet: 3.78 Mbps down, 1.08 Mbps up
Toshiba Satellite laptop with Win 10: 1.87 Mbps down, 0.65 Mbps up
I already did some research, and found that you need to tell Win 10 that you are on a “metered connection” to stop it from swapping data all over the net without your permission. That helped a bit (and got me up to the crappy level I am now from an even worse level). Are there any other tricks I need to pull to get Windows 10 back to my pre-upgrade internet speed? Thanks!
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### Author:  [@JerrySTL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JerrySTL)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2015, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-10-kills-my-internet-speed/741444/2 "2015-12-27T16:13:25Z")
I have a new Dell XPS PC that came with W10 installed. I just got 134.23 Mbps download and 4.28 upload. I’m connected through a router and not by WiFi.
I suggest connecting to the router by wire and seeing if that improves things. If it does, I’d look at the wireless to see if it’s working correctly. Maybe too many devices are on the same channel. My Android phone has an app called Wifi Analyzer that can tell which channels are busy.
I upgraded to a 803.11ac wifi router a few months ago and it really made a difference especially with my 803.11ac devices such as my cell phone and Roku.
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### Author:  [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2015, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-10-kills-my-internet-speed/741444/3 "2015-12-27T16:48:09Z")
If you just upgraded to Win-10, I suspect it’s downloading updates in the background. Open the task manager, click on “more details”, and click on the “network” column to sort the process list by network usage. This should tell you which process (if anything) is using the network.
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### Author:  [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2015, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-10-kills-my-internet-speed/741444/4 "2015-12-27T19:40:47Z")
Thanks for all the suggestions! Connecting the laptop to the router by wire made it almost as fast as the XP machine (which is also connected by wire). But still not as fast as the Android, which is WiFi only! Maybe Android is just an inherently faster OS, due to being so small. And maybe it’s time for a new WiFi router.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2015, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-10-kills-my-internet-speed/741444/5 "2015-12-27T21:31:56Z")
I’d recommend trying to update the driver for the wireless card in the Toshiba Satellite laptop.
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### Author:  [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2015, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-10-kills-my-internet-speed/741444/6 "2015-12-28T01:00:00Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> I’d recommend trying to update the driver for the wireless card in the Toshiba Satellite laptop.
Thanks; I tried that already, and it was up to date. Good thought!
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### Author:  [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2015, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-10-kills-my-internet-speed/741444/7 "2015-12-28T01:36:04Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#):
>
> Thanks; I tried that already, and it was up to date. Good thought!
Did you check the version number of the driver available on the Toshiba web site? Or did you just check for updates from Device Manager?
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### Author:  [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2015, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-10-kills-my-internet-speed/741444/8 "2015-12-28T19:11:55Z")
> [@scr4](#):
>
> Did you check the version number of the driver available on the Toshiba web site? Or did you just check for updates from Device Manager?
I hadn’t thought of that, but I just checked both the Toshiba and Realtek websites. The driver is indeed up to date.
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### Author:  [@fubar.gr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fubar.gr)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2015, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-10-kills-my-internet-speed/741444/9 "2015-12-30T10:24:14Z")
I have the same problem on my Windows 10 laptop.
I’ve found that one solution to the problem is to perform a full shutdown and restart the computer again. To do that, click the Windows icon on the bottom left corner, then click Power and then, while holding the left Shift key pressed click Shut Down.
But after a few days the internet speed just grinds to a halt again.
And no, nothing is using the internet in the background. You can check that by going to Task Manager, Performance and selecting Wifi.
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### Author:  [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2015, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-10-kills-my-internet-speed/741444/10 "2015-12-30T16:07:02Z")
Sorry to hear you are having the same problem. Although it’s nice to know it’s not just me!
I’ve pretty much abandoned trying to solve this problem, as the wired connection is working fine. And since this laptop is five years old and the battery is pretty much useless, it just sits on the desk, right next to the router, anyway. Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions.
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### Author:  [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2015, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-10-kills-my-internet-speed/741444/11 "2015-12-30T19:55:39Z")
It was the rubbish internet speed that killed off win 10 for me, it didn’t cost me anything to rewind and my view was that I was not prepared to f\*\*k about solving microsoft problems for them, one day they might even release something that works out of the box, meantime others can get arrows in their backs, let the pioneers deal with it, its the settlers that have to live with it, and I ain’t settling on stony ground
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### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2015, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-10-kills-my-internet-speed/741444/12 "2015-12-31T16:19:37Z")
I just compared my Win-7 machine with my Win-10 Surface. Got essentially the same results. 5.2 down and 1.2 up.
I keep getting asked to upgrade the former to Win-10 and I can’t decide. I wonder what will stop running when I do. It was a real shock when several 16 bit programs I used to use stopped working under Win-7. The biggest loss was a stand-alone spell checker that I had carefully tuned to my needs. I still keep an old XP machine on hand just for that one app.