Resolved Slow Internet Connection on Mid 2012 MacBook Air

[cheso]

Hi everyone,

I have a Mid 2012 MacBook Air with 10.9.5 installed on it. A couple days ago it started acting really weird when browsing the internet. Websites take forever to load. On speedtest.net, the Ping comes out at an outrageous 800-1000 ms, DL at 3 and UL at 0.5, whereas on any other given device connected to the same router the Ping is around 5-10 ms, DL at 40-60 and UL at 20-30, something that was common for this MacBook as well up until recently. This is true when connected to other routers as well, and also when connected via an Ethernet cable. I do not understand what's wrong at all, since when pinging the websites through Terminal, the Ping stays low at around 1-8 ms. I tried Chrome, Safari, Firefox, same issues with every browser. Please help me out, I'm really desperate at this point, tried deleting network settings, forgetting network, turning off Bluetooth, manually setting DNS,...

All advice is much appreciated

 

[Weaselboy]

Did this happen to start around the same time you installed any new software?

There has been a recent increase in adware getting bundled with application downloads, and I'm wondering if some adware is running on there slowing you down?

Try running this adware scanning tool and see what it finds.

Aside from the Internet being slow, does the Mac otherwise seem to work okay speed wise?

 

[cheso]

Thanks so much for replying. No recent software installed and yes, everything else is perfect, even Skype video calls are seamless.

 

[cheso]

Also, I tried running the Recovery partition and browsing the web through the Get Help Online option which basically lets you use Safari in the Recovery partition. Although speedtest did not work due to the lack of flash, other websites clearly showed a major decrease in ping back to very normal numbers and sites loaded much much faster. So... it is software related. I'm trying to avoid a reinstall. I checked the Activity Monitor and looked into the Network section, but nothing out of the ordinary there. Any ideas?

 

[Weaselboy]

Also, I tried running the Recovery partition and browsing the web through the Get Help Online option which basically lets you use Safari in the Recovery partition. Although speedtest did not work due to the lack of flash, other websites clearly showed a major decrease in ping back to very normal numbers and sites loaded much much faster. So... it is software related. I'm trying to avoid a reinstall. I checked the Activity Monitor and looked into the Network section, but nothing out of the ordinary there. Any ideas?

Try making a new temporary account and then log into that account and see if the issue still exists there.

 

[cheso]

Try making a new temporary account and then log into that account and see if the issue still exists there.

the issue is still present even on a freshly created account... you know what's weird is that for example skype runs without any problem at all

 

[Weaselboy]

the issue is still present even on a freshly created account... you know what's weird is that for example skype runs without any problem at all

One last idea.... then I think after we are left with a reinstall. You can reinstall over top of the existing install without erasing any data.

Try a safe mode boot by holding the shift key when booting. That bypasses any system startup items and will eliminate that as the cause.

 

[cheso]

ISSUE RESOLVED

So after desperately and slowly browsing through the internet, I found that Sophos Antivirus (my college requires me to have it when using its network) has been causing the exact same problem to other people as well. The Web Protection, for some reason, slows down browsing through most webpages significantly. That answers my question about why Skype still ran smoothly. So I turned Web Protection off and voila, Ping went down from 1850 ms to 15 ms. Thank you for all the suggestions though, I was getting really desperate.