For those with problems, have you tried pinging some sites to see what response times you are getting?

(To ping, launch a DOS prompt from Windows (on mine, Start->Programs->Accessories->Command Prompt)). From the DOS prompt, type ping website.com {Enter}, substituting the site you want to ping for "website.com." For example, when I pinged webflyer, I entered ping webflyer.com {Enter}. It responded with 4 lines for 4 tries. My average response time was about 54ms. I also pinged Yahoo and received and average response time of about 37ms. (to exit the DOS window, type exit {Enter}. For comparison, I am connecting to the internet using a wireless router to a cable internet service to Comcast.

The response times will vary, in part, with the internet connection method, so DSL may be slower than cable, and dialup should be much slower than either DSL or cable. You may need to try this at several different times (including a low use time such as the middle of the night) in order to get a benchmark. My understanding (and I am not a techie/engineer) is that the pinging process is entirely outside of Windows, so IE, Norton, etc. should not have an impact on the response time. If you're getting good response times when pinging a site and slow page loading when browsing, that suggests a problem with Windows or its programs. However, if you get a slow response time, that suggests that hardware problems (including an external firewall) or network traffic may be slowing down the transmission. Knowing whether the problem appears to be internal or external should help in coming to a solution.

Hope that helps.