Lately when I download, I find that my system will lag like hell (though download speeds will stay upward of 300-400 KBs). My mouse gets jumpy, If I am playing a movie the audio will lag. Basically it seems like my processor is peaking at 100% and staying there. If I log out and then log back in, it will quit for a bit but will ALWAYS start back up. My disk health is fine, the RAM passed both memory test (Burn in test and MemTest) I am of the belief that this is a problem with the OS...any one else experience this? Better yet does anyone have a fix? Because NOW some of my downloads are becoming corrupt! "The world is a vampire and I am the throat upon which it feeds..." - S.T. Gill

A couple of thoughts: Did you check what your actual throughput is with a speed measurement link? What WAN do you use DSL, Cable, or?? The possibility of infrastructure changes in your P.O.P. service? Do you have a profiling tool to see what else is taking bandwidth other than your downloads? I use Advanced Port Scanner, a freebie from MajorGeeks.com. Anything in the event logs or under the Performance Information Tools? When I have had this problem, I needed to look at these areas, do a tracert etc. to make sure it was not the download site being slow itself. Just one thought/approach. dpminusa Web Developer

I don't know how long you've had this Vista machine of yours or what your expectations were when you got it. Regardless, your CPU is a low performer to begin with - don't let the 3.33GHz clock fool you. It is based on the crappy Netburst Architecture, it is a single-core 533FSB (133Mhz quad-pumped) processor with 512KB L2. On the plus side, it overclocks like heck with extreme cooling since it gets pretty toasty. Unfortunately, you can't crank your 3.33Ghz any higher than it is with you having a Gateway machine. With the above out of the way, have you ever checked the Task Manager to see what is hogging your CPU cycle whenever you experience these lags you're reporting? Jabbering Idiots: Everywhere You Look!

Usually whatever application is doing the downloading does the hogging. As for performance, my processor works VERY well, though when I get a chance I plan on putting in a Core 2 DUO, since my architecture supports it. However I MIGHT have resolved this issue. I recently uninstalled ZONE ALARM and have been doing heavy downloading and streaming since, with no lag...hopefully this is the last I will see of this problem. "The world is a vampire and I am the throat upon which it feeds..." - S.T. Gill

Here is another idea. I recently started tuning my http configuration with netsh. I found the page refreshes were greatly improved when I did this. Maybe ftp can be tuned as well. Its easy to give it a try. If you want to try this, load cmd with the run interface. Enter netsh to get its shell. Enter help to get a command summary. http to get the http mode. Enter add to get into that mode. You will see the add command parameters you can use. I changed the timeout parameters to triple the defaults. I was originally looking for a way to give an AJAX script more time to complete. I found several browser functions were improved with the changes. There are a number of other communication parameters to look at. There may be an option you can use. May be fun to try anyway. Web Developer

Okay guys. I think we can call this one resolved. The removal of Zonealarm seems to have done the trick. "The world is a vampire and I am the throat upon which it feeds..." - S.T. Gill