The house internet is acting up. ATT has changed the router and done a cable repair that helped a lot. Everything works perfectly until my wife connects her laptop. Every time she does, the internet connection slows down a lot or crashes completely.
We have run virus scans that haven't found anything.
If she runs it through her phone hot spot it seems to work properly.
Any ideas?
How many devices are trying to access your router at the same time? Usually routers have a certain number of channels they can switch between. Keep in mind that any computer or phone that is always on is using one of those channels.
Have you tried updating the drivers on the wireless card on her laptop?
In reply to Beer Baron:
At the moment, there are just two. We have shut down or unplugged everything else.
If I'm on, by myself, I get 20+ mbps download. As soon as she logs her computer on, it drops to 1.1 mbps or just locks up.
She's trying to update the drivers now.
Might want to also update the firmware on the router.
If it only gives trouble when that laptop's connected, it's something on that laptop, guzzling too much bandwidth and/or setting uPnP configurations that cause trouble. It's rare to see that kind of thing these days when bandwidth is relatively plentiful.
In the bad old days when bandwidth was in short supply, the file-sharing program LimeWire was notorious for killing networks dead with this kind of BS.
First thing's first, disable uPnP on the router, generally it's not a good idea to have that on regardless. Next try killing all background applications on the laptop directly after you log in, see if that makes any difference. From there you can find the offending application through a process of elimination.
Actually one thing that I've seen cause this in recent times is Windows 10's Bittorrent-like update sharing. Disable this and see what happens:
In reply to Toyman01:
Does the issue also show up when it's only your wife's laptop that's connected?
In addition to a virus scan, I would also run something like Spybot to make sure there's no semi-nefarious software on the machine.
Updating the firmware on the router might be a good idea if AT&T let you.
GameboyRMH makes a good point, but the Win10 background "torrent" shouldn't nuke all the bandwidth. But there's always a possibility that there's something else going on on that laptop. Taken part in any Botnets recently? 
It is only the wife's laptop that causes problems, it is the only system we have with windows 10.
The router is new, installed by ATT yesterday. They also replaced the line connection at the street, thinking that was a issue.
Malware scans and virus scans turned up nothing.
She can tie in on her phone with no problems, it's only the house connection that crashes. When she is connected to the house, her speeds are in the 1-2 mbps range. Connected to her phone, they are in the 6-7 mbps range, which is about what T-mobile gives you.
She is trying to get the drivers updated now but not having much luck.
Spybot will be next as well as the Win 10 changes.
Thanks for the ideas.
BoxheadTim wrote: the Win10 background "torrent" shouldn't nuke all the bandwidth.
I've seen it happen at 2 offices with similar bandwidth to an average US home connection so far.
GameboyRMH wrote:BoxheadTim wrote: the Win10 background "torrent" shouldn't nuke all the bandwidth.I've seen it happen at 2 offices with similar bandwidth to an average US home connection so far.
Fair enough. It's a good idea to disable it anyway IMHO.
In reply to Toyman01:
The one thing that concerns me somewhat is that the problem only occurs on your Wifi. When you say "connected to her phone", is that with the phone providing a Wifi hotspot?
Ran virus and malware scans. Both are good. Made the suggested change above. Didn't help. Updated all drivers. Hasn't helped. Currently trying to update spybot thing but I don't know where to go after that. I want to throw my computer out the window right now.
Rebooted after updating drivers and turning off the Windows Update Delivery Optimization (WUDO)?
GameboyRMH wrote: Actually one thing that I've seen cause this in recent times is Windows 10's Bittorrent-like update sharing. Disable this and see what happens: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2955491/windows/how-to-stop-windows-10-from-using-your-pcs-bandwidth-to-update-strangers-systems.html
There's a twisted sort of humor in having an article about conserving bandwidth, with an autoload/autoplay video on the page.
Rebooted it after the one driver it updated. Have not shut it down after I turned that thingy off. I'll be back in a few and tell you if that helped.
It didn't help. Any other ideas?
Use Win10's task manager to see if any application is sending or receiving a lot of traffic:
https://www.howtogeek.com/224170/how-to-monitor-your-network-usage-in-windows-10/
She's pissed off at it and went outside to wash her car.
Boxhead Tim. said: The one thing that concerns me somewhat is that the problem only occurs on your Wifi. When you say "connected to her phone", is that with the phone providing a Wifi hotspot?
Yes, using her phone as a hotspot it doesn't seem to cause any issues. Only when connected to the DSL router do it seem to have issues. The router has been replace since this has started happening. If anything, the problem has gotten worse since the router was replaced.
When using the phone as a hotspot are you connecting to it via wifi or usb?
Could it be an IP address conflict with router or other host on network?
On Win 10, you can set the network as a metered connection. You could try that.
It started out that it worked on the phone connection. Over the next 30 minutes, it went downhill. So it's something in this stupid laptop. All connections are wifi.
This makes no sense... and as soon as I post this... it will probably change. It's working.
Is there any sort of automatic backup to the cloud that is running in the background? Has this just recently started or has it been going on for as long as you have had that laptop? Does it hog all the bandwidth if you connect to the router via cable (not wifi)?
Mike wrote: Could it be an IP address conflict with router or other host on network?
Was thinking the same thing, but that would throw a warning on at least the offending computer.
Download the Sysinternals suite (available from Microsoft) and run Process Explorer (procexp.exe or procexp64.exe depending on 32-bit or 64-bit Windows.
Then right click the headings, choose "select columns" and add Process I/O Read Bytes and write bytes. Then you can sort on those colums and see what process is using the bandwidth. After that, right click the process in the list and select "properties". Look at Image information to see the manufacturer , install location, etc. so we can see what's doing this.
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