# Solved: Windows 7 network access slow



## sabrefreak (Jan 5, 2009)

The network access on my Win 7 64bit Professional laptops (Lenovo, 6GB RAM) is brutally slow, and sometimes times out. All I ama connecting to is a Buffalo TeraStation.
I have other Win 7 64bit Ultimate desktops (Dell, 8GB Ram) and they are lightning fast.

I have tried both mapped drives and network places and have the same issue.

My network here is very open, no passwords, and on these Lenovo's is still prompts me occassionally for a password to access the Terastation - the other Win 7 machines and the Win XP machines have never done this.

I went into Advanced Networking options and told the Lenovo's not to use passwords for shared drives.
I also tried the following (under command prompt as Administrator): netsh interface ipv4 set subinterface "Wireless Network Connection" mtu=1430 store=persistent

Both of these only worked for a short time.

I have unchecked ipv6 in Network Settings, as we are not using it, and matched settings for the wireless card to those in the office (DHCP, enable enetbios over TCP/IP). Again, they only worked briefly.

The machines are great, except for this network issue. Any ideas?


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## sabrefreak (Jan 5, 2009)

Update: My mistake - the laptops are actually Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit, 4GB RAM, Pentium Dual Core, T4400, 2.2 GHz Lenovo.

As they fell off the network - again - I stuck them on fixed IP's using our standard range but with OpenDNS servers. For one, it has worked well, so far. The other, no luck. Even it that works perfectly, to me it's not a great solution to use the wireless on a fixed IP (these machines use wireless only in that part of the office). 

To reiterate, my other Windows 7 computers are Dell's - 2 desktops with 8 GB, and a laptop with 4GB, both with Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit. None of these have any issues with the network.


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

Make sure you have the latest wireless driver. For an internal card the driver should be from the PC manufacturer's web site.


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## golddust (Jan 2, 2005)

When my network card was going bad, I was having the same experience. I downloaded the latest driver, but it didn't matter. I reinstalled the driver several times - still didn't work. My connections were on again/off again.


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## sabrefreak (Jan 5, 2009)

TerryNet - I tried to reinstall the driver (the Lenovo site's most current driver was the driver already installed). There was no change.

I also went into Control Panel>Programs & Features>Turn Windows Features on or Off. Here I turned off Remote Differential Compression (RDC) after reading a few articles stating to turn it off to speed things up. It made no difference.

I have contacted BuffaloTech (the manuafcturers of our NAS) to see if they have a solution; they published on their site a solution for connectivity to Vista so I asked them about Win 7. So far, no answer.

I am tempted to just do the Anytime Upgrade and make them Ultimate; I know my other Ultimate computers work. It seems like a crappy way out though and may not work.

I also checked the Windows Firewall. On the Lenovo's I have the Firewall turned OFF; it states that the Home Network is connected; and that Incoming Connections block all connections to programs that are not on the list of allowed programs.

With Firewall turned off, it shouldn't be blocking anything at all though, right?

The Ultimate desktops (at least 1 of them) have Firewall ON, but otherwise the same firewall statements (block all programs...), and can access the server rocket fast.


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

If you're talking about the Windows firewall I seriously doubt it would cause this problem. A non-Windows firewall or security suite could be corrupted, so I would uninstall it, use the Removal Tool if one is provided, test, and then reinstall it.

Have you tried with an ethernet connection to determine if this is a wireless only or a more general networking issue?

The wireless driver could be corrupted, so use Device Manager to uninstall it; reboot and let Windows discover the adapter and reinstall the driver.

In case of other corruption ...

(From a JohnWill post)

*TCP/IP stack repair options for use with Vista or 7. *

Start, Programs\Accessories and right click on Command Prompt, select "Run as Administrator" to open a command prompt.

Reset WINSOCK entries to installation defaults: *netsh winsock reset catalog*

Reset IPv4 TCP/IP stack to installation defaults. *netsh int ipv4 reset reset.log*

Reset IPv6 TCP/IP stack to installation defaults. *netsh int ipv6 reset reset.log*

Reboot the machine.


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## sabrefreak (Jan 5, 2009)

TerryNet - thanks for the ideas.
It was the Windows Firewall that I was referring to; I didn't think it was the problem, but thought I'd throw it out there.
We had another identical laptop which I'd forgotten about (bought in bulk) so I'm using that now to come up with and test solutions prior to bothering the workers. It displays the same problems mentioned above.
On the test laptop, I tried a straight ethernet connection and got internet and intranet connectivity immediately (with wireless disabled). Then, with wireless enabled and no enet cable, I could get internet but no intranet (rather, to be specific, it was slow, and would occassionally crap out).
On your suggestion I tried the netsh commands and also an uninstall (including drivers) of the wireless card. Windows immediately picked it back up on boot and found drivers for it. I put the password back in for the appropraite wireless network. It was a little sluggish at first so I rebooted and it was fine.
I have made these changes on the laptops that the workers are using.
As it is now near quitting time, I will see what happens tomorrow.

Thanks for you're assistance thus far.


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## sabrefreak (Jan 5, 2009)

TerryNet,

Thanks for the advice. Everything is working great after over a day - no hitches at all!
Now I just have to boost the wireless signal, but I guess I need to start another topic for that, eh?

Thanks.


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

You're welcome. 

For boosting the wireless signal you might want to take a look at this JohnWill post before starting another thread.


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