check your internet speedhttp://speedtest.net/make sure you have regular maintenance on your PCdisk clean up, disk defragementer, emptying recycle bin.or you can download CCleaner on the net that can free up more disk space.http://ccleaner.commaybe you have viruses that you are not aware of that might slow down your pc, make sure you have anti virus software and check your drive if infected.and/or for faster performance you can speed up your bandwidth by 20%Microsoft reserves 20% of your available bandwidth for their own purposes like Windows Updates and interrogating your PC etcYou can get it back:Click Start then Run and type "gpedit.msc" without quotes.This opens the group policy editor. Then go to:Local Computer Policythen Computer Configurationthen Administrative Templates then Network then QOS Packet Scheduler and then to Limit Reservable Bandwidth.Double click on Limit Reservable bandwidth. It will say it is not configured, but the truth is under the 'Explain' tab i.e."By default, the Packet Scheduler limits the system to 20 percent of the bandwidth of a connection, but you can use this setting to override the default."So the trick is to ENABLE reservable bandwidth, then set it to ZERO. This will allow the system to reserve nothing, rather than the default 20%.It works on Win 2000 as well.