Hi there everyone,

First of all this website is amazing and it's already helped me to no end, and until today i didn't EVEN have an account.

That being SAID i have spent the last month or so talking to my internet providers and friends and searching google for a fix, with as of yet no luck.
The problem is with me trying to download things from websites or updating installed programs. The thing is this problem does not occur with everything, so even as i write this i know it sounds a little dodgy from the get go, I'll explain further.

I have spoken to sky who are my ISP and they have sent me out a new router to try and solve the issue with no luck, ive been through everything they can suggest, including: turning everything off and on, changing my micro filter, using the master socket, using the test socket, changing the wifi channel (though the problem is still there with an Ethernet only connection), i have done there websites self help a few times and have no results. After talking to them over the past few weeks and letting them do line checks and everything else they can do on there end i have come to the conclusion its a problem with my laptop, as every check they have carried out has always come up ok.

The laptop is an Alienware M17xr3,
-intel core i7-2820QM CPU with 2.30GHz
-24g ddr3 ram
-running onboard graphics (amd card broken down a good while ago)
-has an ssd and a sata hdd

After looking for a few fixes and system restoring i have formatted my computer with a fresh installation of windows 7, hopefully ensuring nothing is wrong with my settings somehow that i may have overlooked. But still the problem persists, which i now have come to realise i haven't truly explained what the problem is. The problem occurs when im downloading something, the download will start and the speed will be fine for a few seconds, then the download rate will fall quickly and within a few seconds drop to 0 kbps, after leaving it to think even overnight it hasn't ever picked up a dropped download.

This problem does not occur with everything however, for example if i download a game from steam it normally downloads fine, sometimes a little slower than i would like but otherwise its been ok. and i have even tried a sky approved test download, just a random zipped file from a website i cant remember which was 200mb in size, it downloaded maybe a little slower than expected but it still downloaded just fine. But if i try to update league of legends for example, or a large handful of other random game clients or even skype it wont download, or at least it'll download only for a few seconds before it drops in speed and soon after stops completely.

I appreciate that this question is convoluted and it might just be that my laptop is now running on fumes because of its age, but if anyone has a suggestion i would be very grateful to hear it, thank you for getting this far down the post and sticking with my bad description of the problem. Do you have any internet security software running which can interfere with downloading?

Only time I ever ran into an issue with a game update it was one of the NCsoft games called Aion and I didnt want to be a SEED on the torrent network used for updates. I shut off the seed so I could only update but not share the update with others. I did this because I was on a lesser bandwidth internet package and didnt have any upload bandwidth to spare for others with VoIP and everyone else in home also needing to share what was then 5/1mbps bandwidth.

Messing around with Aion and WORLD of Warcraft and some others, I soon found myself unable to download updates. It would do just as you stated start to download and then the value for data communicating would get lesser and lesser until it was at 0 but it wouldnt error out. To fix this I had to uninstall and reinstall all games that I tampered with the update torrent with.

For fact that its affecting games and skype I am thinking it might be an internet security package maybe that needs to be turned off for a short while to see if that clears up the issue. If the problem clears up then you need to find a way to white list the games/programs that are getting choked off for bandwidth.

Also have you checked your system lately for virus's or MALWARE which can try to redirect the traffic on you breaking downloads?Do you room on your harddrive for the downloads?Heya guys,

I've tried turning off the firewall and even my antivirus for certain downloads, and also i've tried multiple places to download from, still cant update league even though friends have tried the same downloads as me to double check the sites are working correctly and theirs has worked. I have double checked for viruses and even installed my antivirus from a cd when i did the recent format, so that was in place from the moment i connected to the internet. =/

Also i have plenty of space, i wish it was that simple but still a good suggestion, having just formatted the computer to try and solve the problem that way.

Thank you for suggesting fixes though, especially so soon.I would call your ISP....they can do an onsite test...no charge.
Cause it certainly doesn't sound normal...unless of course these are torrent sites we're speaking of...if so all bets are off.I have spoken to my isp for hours and hours and they say everything from there point of view is fine, unfortunately that probably means the problem is with my computer. Also all the downloads that im speaking of are non torrent direct from site or server downloads such as game updates and client downloads. Thanks for the suggestion though all the same.Are you currently using a DLoad manager ? ?
If so disable and test again...One other test would be id you had another computer to try downloading the same content.... do they have same problem?

Invite a friend over to download and test with their computer if you dont have a second computer to test with. OR go to their place and use their internet connection and see if the problem is gone at their internet connection with your computer.Hey again guys,

I have no download manager or anything like that, i have tried using one to see if it will work but still no luck. also my friends come round and it works just fine for him but not me, and i have been to his and he can still download but not me. Thanks for the suggestions though, hopefully ill get to the bottom of this soon.