Normal upload speed, but slow download speed

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1

At the start of the year, I put my laptop through a factory reset as it was starting to get pretty slow. After the reset, it was great! The only issue was that for whatever reason the Discord app wasn’t working and I had to download the PTB version.

However, about a week or so later, my download speed was reduced to a fraction of its former self. I tried a lot of different suggestions, like flushing the DNS and such, but to no avail. So, I reset it again, and everything was back to normal! But two weeks after that, the wifi stopped working properly again and I was back at square one.

No other device on the network is facing this issue, it is completely and utterly isolated to my laptop. Furthermore, when I take my laptop somewhere else and connect to the wifi there, everything seems to work just fine. So somehow, it’s a problem isolated to my laptop and home wifi at the same time.

Does anyone have any clue what might be wrong?

2

I really hate to sound rude but you haven’t given any actual numbers as to what speeds you’re getting vs what you’re expecting, and only mentioned that you flushed DNS. It could be anything from malware to a VPN you’re using to poor signal strength.

Here’s some questions, the answers to which might help narrow down exactly what’s going wrong:

  1. What type of ISP do you use (fiber, cable, DSL, cellular, satellite…) and what is the advertised speed you’re supposed to be getting from them? What is the actual speed you’re receiving on your laptop (as tested from at least two different speed test sites)?
  2. Do you have any apps installed on your laptop that might interfere with or otherwise influence your PC’s networking stack, like a VPN, antivirus other than Windows Defender, torrent clients, network monitoring or other security software, etc.
  3. Since this is a laptop, have you attempted moving the laptop closer to the router to see if your speeds improve based on your proximity to the router?
  4. You mentioned trying to flush DNS, but have you attempted to modify your DNS server settings to use another DNS service like Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) or Google DNS (8.8.8.8)? If your ISP’s DNS servers are not working properly you might see degraded performance, and manually setting a custom DNS server might correct some issues.
  5. Do you live with parents or roommates who have control over the router and may be imposing limits or throttling specifically your laptop’s connection?

Edited to add: To completely rule out any software-related factors, try booting in Safe Mode with Networking. This will only start critical Windows services and will not start any other software. If your speeds are good in that mode, you can be fairly certain that the issue is a piece of software on your machine.

3

Sorry

  1. I use satellite. I’m supposed to be getting around 100Mbps for both download and upload, but I average around 8 for download.

  2. The only thing I can think of is McAfee.

  3. I have indeed moved it closer to the router, but to no avail.

  4. Yes, I’ve tried modifying my DNS

4

OK, some good answers here. First thing I would do is disable McAfee, it’s really not necessary if you’re running a modern copy of Windows and have Defender enabled. All it’s really doing is slowing your PC down (and potentially your network too).

Secondly, satellite internet is arguably one of the worst types of connections you can use in 2025 (unless it’s something like StarLink). I understand it may be the only option in your area, but I have to call this out nonetheless. Latencies with traditional satellite ISPs are always going to be much higher than with any other type of connection, but overall throughput shouldn’t necessarily suffer from that.

Finally, you state your download speed is around 8. Are you measuring that from a speed test site, or in apps like Steam where you’re actually downloading data? I just want to confirm that you’re seeing 8 Mbps and not 8 MB/s.

5

I got rid of McAfee, but that doesn’t seem to have fixed anything, but it annoyed me anyways so that’s a win regardless.

Yes, I can confirm that it is 8 Mbps and not 8 MB/s, as that is what both speedtest by Ookla and Spectrum’s (my provider) speediest says.

6

Also, I tried doing what you said and starting my PC in safe mode with networking, but, while it showed the option to connect to wifi, no wifi connection ever showed up.

7

OK thanks for confirming. Next things I would personally try would be (in order):

  1. Check if your Wi-Fi is on the 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz band. Try forcing to use one band and then the other checking speeds to see if there’s a difference between the two.
  2. Install the drivers for your Wi-Fi adapter straight from your PC manufacturer’s website. Sometimes the drivers that get installed via Windows Update aren’t the best match for your hardware and can cause strange issues.
  3. Try to disable IPv6 temporarily and see if there’s any change. I’ve heard it can sometimes be an issue with satellite internet specifically.