Is my internet really slow now that I changed the power supply and graphics card?
Is my internet really slow now that I changed the power supply and graphics card?
I have a PC that has been working fine for over ten years. A few weeks ago, the computer suddenly shut down completely. I tried to restart it, but nothing worked. The motherboard's LED light stayed dark. Even the fan on the CPU wouldn't spin up. After trying many things, I took out my old graphics card (GTX 970) and the power supply unit (PSU). When I turned everything back on, the system started right away until it hit a warning message about not finding any devices connected. Then I learned that one of two power plugs on the video card had burned out because the PSU was bad too. The old PSU had been running 24 hours a day for eleven years, so that makes sense.
I cleaned all the dust out of the PC and replaced both the new power supply and graphics card. I checked my BIOS settings to make sure everything stayed the same after my changes. Now Windows starts again, but it's doing some slow checks called "chkdsk." After running those checks, I get back into normal use for a while, but then YouTube videos look choppy, and internet speed tests show me getting less than 50MB per second instead of the usual over 400MB.
I tested my computer plugged directly into the router using an ethernet cable (CAT5e) at the same time as my old PC, and it got similar slow speeds too. I also tried different web browsers to see if one was glitching; they all gave me the same bad results. Comcast called me back saying their line test found no problems with the modem or line itself.
I already made sure not to have any video drivers installed that might be causing trouble, and I also checked if Quality of Service (QoS) settings were on in Windows or the router.
First try resetting the BIOS by going to your product page and downloading or installing the latest driver for your motherboard. Then restart your PC. Since your computer is old, it's probably really good to replace the CMOS battery at the same time because you'll need to remove it anyway for a hard reset, especially on a ten-year-old board where it's almost certainly dead or weak. You can use a CR2032 battery.
Power off the computer and unplug the power supply cord from the wall. Remove the motherboard's CMOS battery and wait about three to five minutes while pressing the case button for 15-30 seconds to drain any leftover charge. If you had to take out the graphics card, you can put it back in after replacing the battery, but reconnect your display cable and power cables too. Plug the power supply cord back in, turn on the PSU, and start the system. You should see a POST screen and BIOS options appear. Enter setup mode and change boot settings for Windows or legacy systems if needed. Save changes and exit.
If the system starts up correctly, you can proceed with more custom settings like memory profiles (XMP), fan profiles, or other options from when it was originally set. Sometimes you might need to load default values in BIOS after a reset so that hardware tables actually reset properly and work well in the boot manager. If that doesn't fix network speed issues, the network adapter could have been "zapped" when the power supply and graphics card died, since these components are often weak on motherboards. It might be better to buy a new PCIe network expansion card instead.
You don't need much info on the BIOS, but there are a few annoying settings that some people mess up. The green and power saving options often cause errors right away. In Windows, check the status screen to see if your port is going full speed at 100mbps or 1gbit. If it's just 100mbps, chances are you have a bad cable, but that could also mean the port itself is broken. You can try booting up using a Linux USB image instead; these run straight from the stick and come with a browser built in so you can do a quick speed test. If the result is still slow, it's probably not just your settings but something wrong with your hardware. If it goes fast though, then maybe Windows is doing what it wants to do!
You should listen to Bill. He knows way too much about networking that I could never learn it myself.
Not sure if your image link shows 1000 or just 100. If it says 1000, then you'll need something more complex. I might try a simple unix boot because that's fast to test and helps rule out many problems. You can guess by copying files back and forth between the two machines and watching the speed in the resource monitor network tab. Just watch out though—some numbers on the screen say MBYTES instead of Mbits.
I fixed the image link and it shows 1000/1000. That means my new ethernet card isn't working well, but having a spare in the drawer is always good. Your idea about booting another operating system was great, so I put Ubuntu on USB with Firefox right there on that same hardware. Now I'm getting over 500MBps for download, which proves it's either Windows or web browsers causing the speed issues. It feels weird though because a power supply or video card failure would normally slow down the internet connection.
I hate these problems because there are too many different settings in Windows. You could try wiping the disk and reinstalling, hoping that works. A couple of ways to check if it's just the web browser: try using Steam. Remember Steam measures its speed in MBYTES per second. Even then, Steam can act weird sometimes; games might download fast on one internet connection but slow on another. If you have a second computer at home, maybe you could try copying big files between them to see what's happening. You could also use an old program called IPERF. On a house network, this should give you 900+ mbps when testing the nic and drivers. But that only tests those things, so you might still be stuck trying to figure out what else in Windows is causing the mess up.