Suffering from a boring internet connection? It'south an extremely frustrating problem, meaning most people volition wonder how to speed up their internet performance at some point.

We're here to help. Allow's await at some general Windows tips to hopefully make your cyberspace speed faster on your Windows PC.

Starting time: Exam Your Connectedness Speed

To first, head to Speedtest.cyberspace to measure out your connection speed and quality. Simply click the Go push and requite the app a minute to run.

Internet speed without a VPN

You'll run across 3 stats related to your net connexion:

  • Ping, also called latency, is the number of milliseconds it takes for you to receive a response after sending a request to a server. The lower this number, the amend your connexion to that server. This is particularly important in online video games, as a high ping results in lag.
  • Download speed, measured in megabits per second (Mbps), is how fast your reckoner tin can grab information from remote servers. The higher your download speed, the quicker yous'll be able to download files, stream video, and similar.
  • Upload speed, also measured in Mbps, is how fast your computer can send data to other devices on the internet. The faster this speed, the quicker you tin can perform tasks like uploading files to a website. This number is commonly lower than your download speed since most online activity revolves effectually downloads.

Taking these together, we often use the term bandwidth to describe the amount of data you can transfer over the internet in a fix amount of time.

Think of bandwidth like a water pipe leading into your house. If one person wants to take a shower, they'll have a pleasant experience. Only with half-dozen people using the water at the same time in unlike places, the pressure drops for everyone.

Network bandwidth works in the same way. One device downloading large files is no problem. Only when you have six devices on your network all trying to stream 4K video, play online games, and similar at one time, they tin can only each use a portion of the total bandwidth.

At present, allow's review some tweaks you can make to ameliorate your cyberspace speed on Windows. While you can't magically increase the speed from your ISP, you can brand better use of the bandwidth available to you.

1. Close Network-Heavy Apps

As discussed, if ane program is heavily using the network, other apps will suffer. Because of this, when you experience slow speeds, you lot should cheque to see what apps are using your network connectedness and close them if necessary.

To exercise this on Windows, press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open the Task Manager. Click More than details to expand the window, if needed. Next, on the Processes tab, click the Network header to sort running apps by their network usage.

Windows Task Manager Network Usage

If anything is using an excessive corporeality of bandwidth, you should close it to free upward resource for other apps. This is specially of import if you desire to perform a network-intensive activity, similar playing games online or uploading video.

Some common network culprits include:

  • Cloud storage services like Dropbox syncing many files
  • Torrenting software
  • Files downloading in your browser
  • Watching video, particularly in 4K
  • Streaming to a service similar Twitch

2. Review Other Devices on Your Network

If you still experience a ho-hum network connection afterwards closing apps, the trouble may lie with another device on your network. Perchance someone else is streaming Netflix on their tablet, downloading files on their computer, or playing games on their console.

In those cases, you should bank check with other people in your habitation. Hopefully, you can tweak their systems with the tips mentioned here, or piece of work out a way to ameliorate share the bandwidth.

Information technology's also wise to check for common culprits that slow down your Wi-Fi network. You may need to upgrade to a improve connection plan with your provider if you want to take multiple devices all online doing network-intensive activities at once.

3. Change Your Wi-Fi Aqueduct

Your wireless router broadcasts using a specific channel. Considering of the large number of devices that use Wi-Fi, and the number of networks in crowded areas like apartment complexes, certain channels can run into interference.

If y'all only experience slow net speeds when on Wi-Fi, making changes to the channel might improve your issue. Run into our complete guide to irresolute your router'south Wi-Fi channel for instructions.

4. Adjust Windows Update's Delivery Options

Windows Update in Windows x includes a peer-to-peer sharing characteristic. This allows computers to share pieces of updates they download with other machines. While it's a nice idea in theory, it tin can also upshot in wasted bandwidth.

To accommodate this option, head to Settings > Update & Security > Delivery Optimization. Here, yous tin can cull to disable the update sharing characteristic entirely by disabling the Permit downloads from other PCs slider.

If y'all like, you tin instead enable this and select the PCs on my local network option. This prevents your system from sharing updates to random computers on the internet, while still sending them to other computers on your network. For homes with multiple Windows 10 systems, this could reduce the overall bandwidth usage for updates.

Windows 10 Delivery Optimization

To further adjust the bandwidth Windows 10 uses, click the Advanced options link below these buttons. This folio provides you with checkboxes and sliders to limit how much bandwidth Windows uses when downloading updates in the background or foreground. You lot can too limit how much bandwidth the update sharing feature uses for uploads.

Windows 10 Limit Update Bandwidth 2021

v. Limit Bandwidth Usage for Apps

Restricting Windows Update is swell; you should consider doing the same for other apps. Some, similar fill-in and cloud storage apps, let you restrict bandwidth usage in their settings.

For example, with Dropbox, you can click its icon in your Arrangement Tray, and so click your profile icon and choose Preferences. In the resulting window, select the Bandwidth tab and you can limit the Download rate and Upload rate.

Dropbox Limit Bandwidth Windows 10

What if y'all want to limit the bandwidth usage of an app that doesn't have this option built-in? We've covered apps that permit you limit the cyberspace bandwidth programs employ on Windows.

To get an idea of which apps employ the most information on your PC, head to Settings > Network & Internet > Status. At the top where y'all meet your current connection, click the Data usage button and you lot'll see a breakup of usage by app. This gives you an idea of which ones you lot might need to limit.

Windows 10 Bandwidth Usage Menu

6. Disable Metered Connections

Windows x allows you to ready a connectedness as metered. This is handy when yous need to conserve how much data yous utilise on a Wi-Fi hotspot from your mobile provider, for instance. Merely if you lot accidentally enabled this selection for your home network, sure apps and features can irksome themselves downward to save data.

To see if your current network connection is metered, visit Settings > Network & Net again. On the Status tab, click the Properties button that appears below your electric current connectedness name. In this carte, under the Metered connection heading, disable the Set as metered connexion slider if it'south on.

Windows 10 Metered Connection

Once it'southward off, run across if your network connexion behaves equally yous expect.

7. Change Your DNS Server

If nothing above has worked to increment your Wi-Fi speed, you might consider adjusting the DNS servers that your reckoner (or entire network) uses. DNS, or Domain Proper name System, is a protocol that translates human-readable website names (like makeuseof.com) into reckoner-readable IP addresses (similar 34.233.102.111).

When your computer has to make a DNS request, it goes through a server equipped for this purpose. It likely uses your Internet access provider'due south DNS server by default, but yous can often speed up your browsing by using some other DNS server.

To do this, type Command Panel into the Start menu to open that utility. Alter the View by field in the summit-correct to Large icons or Modest icons if needed, so choose Network and Sharing Heart. At that place, side by side to the Connections text, click the link with the name of your connectedness.

In the resulting window, click the Properties button at the bottom. In the list that appears, double-click on Internet Protocol Version 4. Then, at the lesser, select the Use the following DNS server addresses push button.

Windows 10 Change DNS Settings

Hither you'll demand to enter the addresses of the server you lot want to use. To beginning, give Google's public DNS a try. Enter the following addresses to use it:

  • Preferred DNS server: 8.8.8.viii
  • Alternating DNS server: 8.8.4.4

Click OK once done, and you've successfully switched your DNS server for your computer. Whether this makes a major difference will depend on your location and ISP. You may want to try another DNS server if Google'southward pick doesn't assistance.

8. Endeavour Farther Internet Troubleshooting

We've gone over some useful Windows tweaks to improve your network speed. But you might require farther testing if you lot're still suffering from slow speeds.

In that case, you should review what to practice when your Wi-Fi connection speed drops. If you feel extremely slow Wi-Fi speeds all the time, it might be time to buy a new router.

Equally you've seen, a lot of these issues are related to Wi-Fi. If it's at all possible for you to wire your computer to your router with an Ethernet cable, doing so will ameliorate your internet operation considerably. When using Ethernet, you'll go a speed closer to what your ISP lists.

Now Yous Know How to Make Your Net Speed Faster

We've looked at several Windows adjustments that can ameliorate your internet connection. Hopefully, they bring your current speed to an acceptable level.

Information technology's of import to note, still, that internet tweaks similar these can only go so far. Your connection speed won't ever exceed what you lot pay your Internet access provider for. If you lot live in a remote surface area and thus apply a deadening connection type like DSL, or accept a cheap net programme, you may need to expect into another provider or upgrade your plan to meliorate your speeds.

In other cases, your entire figurer might boring downwardly when connected to the net. This is a dissever trouble.