Very slow download speeds

Okay, I had a HD crash on me. Got a new one, installed it, ran the recovery discs and everything is back. I went through tons of updates to get it back to "current" My question is.....before the crash I was getting download speeds of around 12mb/s......now I am gett 1-2mb/s, am I missing something here? Why is it so slow with this new HD? It is a Western Digital Scorpio Black 320GB WD3200BEKT 7200rpm HD.

 

Is your OS XP? If so you should run the align utility after a clean install because this drive is Advanced Format. Not sure if this would help download speeds though. Click the Advanced Format link near the top of the page.

http://wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=130

 

Download speed is determined by your internet service provider.
What does SpeedTest show as your speed?
http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

 

I didnt think the drive had anything to do with download speed, it just seemed odd that with a new drive it is now slower. I will try a driver update on the motherboard and network. Hopefully that is easy to do. I am at work now but will look at that when I get home and update you.

I used www.testmyspeed.com to check it. Before I had problems it would get about 11-12mb/s now I am lucky to get 3mb/s.

I am on Vista as an OS.

 

Alright, I closed out some toolbars that were running and it helped a little, getting about 5.5mb/s now. I am what you would call a computer idiot of sorts, I cant figure out how to do driver updates on the motherboard and network.

Also, on some sites like www.testmyspeed.com it jumbles a lot of the text together where it is hard to read. What would cause that to happen?

Can you clue me in on how to update those drivers?

 

What specs are you wanting, the hard drive specs?

I just thought of something else too. When I created the recovery discs it had me make a disc called "Apps & Drivers DVD" but after I put the new HD in it never asked for that disc. Should I put this disc in and will that fix the drivers? I wont put it in until you say if I should or not. And also, if I put it in do I reboot with it in or just stick it in and run it?

 

It is a Toshiba model A505D-56958

 

Awesome, I will check these out tonight when I get home and let you know what happened when I hooked up with a cat5 cable. Thanks so much for the help.

 

I downloaded it, not sure what to do next. I also hooked up direct and got a little faster speed but not much, maybe about 7mb/s. When I downloaded the program I said to open but I dont know what to do with it now.

 

Okay, also tried something else, on testmyspeed.com I am getting about 2-3mb/s but on http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ I got 10.5mb/s. Why would they be so drastically different?

 

Okay, I think I downloaded the wrong one, I downloaded the one on the link you sent. I didnt see one for Atheros Wireless LAN Driver, I looked under the driver section but didnt see it for Vista.

 

Okay downloaded the right thing this time, hit run, it unziped the files but dont know if it did anything after that.

Have the list up for channels it says the signal is 87% and on channel 2, how do I change the channel?