BT Modem Makes Computer Slow
I had a client recently who was complaining that her computer was very slow – particularly the network connection. My first thought, naturally, was it’s probably overrun with viruses, but when I got there and checked it out, the computer was running as well as could be expected.
It’s a very old computer – about ten years old – and it’s only got 256MB of RAM. It’s running Windows XP, so it’s not surprising it’s quite slow. But she was right about the network being really slow.
She’s got a BT HomeHub broadband modem, which is connected to the computer via a network cable. That’s fine and it should have been a fast connection as she was close to the centre of town. It took me a while to work out what was going on, as the modem wasn’t configured in the way I would have expected it to be. I tried connecting to it via wireless with my laptop, but hit a brick wall there, as the wireless connection was set up so it wasn’t available, even though it showed up in the list on my computer. I tried connecting my laptop to the modem via a cable, but that didn’t work either.
Then I tried to get some sense out of the BT HomeHub management software, but it just kept asking me for a password and refused to accept it when I supplied one – with no explanation, just going back to asking me to set up a password. It didn’t appear to be expecting an existing password, but it wanted me to set up a new one. I tried resetting the modem and using the default password from the manual, but it didn’t make any difference. My client had spent a long time on the phone with BT previously, trying to resolve this matter – but they just blamed her!
In the end, I worked out that the software from the installation CD supplied by BT with the modem, had set up the connection in the most stupid way possible. It had set it up so that all the work of the broadband connection was being done by the computer, with the modem just passing it through to the BT network. This is so retarded it was quite hard to believe it was real!
It was no wonder the network was running slow – when that low powered computer had to do all the work of keeping the broadband connection running, as well as displaying web pages at the same time. That’s how the old type of USB modems work – and anyone who’s used one of those knows how slow they make the system. The advantage of a modem like the HomeHub is that it’s not necessary for the computer to do any of the work – that’s what the modem’s for, after all!
So I uninstalled the stupid BT software – which was difficult in itself, as the software appears to be appallingly badly designed. Once I’d done that though, and reset the modem again, the network link just worked – without any special software. And it was much faster! That’s exactly what I would expect, as there’s absolutely no need for any special software to run an internet connection like that on a modern Windows system (or any other system, for that matter).
The simple solution is don’t install BT’s stupid software if you use BT HomeHub! If you have installed it and you computer is running slowly, it may be worth consider uninstalling it and seeing if it improves. Don’t forget to reset the modem once you’ve uninstalled it though.
But maybe it would be a good idea to steer well clear of BT broadband completely, as a company that can’t even manage a sensible connection between a computer and a modem is surely not capable of running a massive broadband network properly!