These days there are a lot of people using a Broadband Internet connection to get online. As a consumer you can get Broadband through use of DSL, which is normally supplied by a phone company, or you can get a connection with a cable Internet Company, providing that there is one in your area. Generally speaking broadband will grant you a relatively fast connection which will be a must if you are thinking of downloading and viewing/listening to videos and music.



But as we all know technology isn't perfect and sometimes you may experience a painfully slow connection even with Broadband. If you are or have experienced this you should know that there could be lots of reasons to why it is happening to you; your internet provider may be having some problems or your computer may have become victim to viruses and spyware. Your fist step towards sorting the problem should be to run a broadband speed test on your connection. Why, because this will help you determine whether the problem is on your end or your providers.

If you call your Internet provider, they will most likely be able to run a broadband speed test on your computer while you wait. It shouldn't take a moment, and they can tell you rather quickly if the problem is on their end or yours. They may also have a website that you can go to, that is of cause if you can still get online, and it will run the broadband speed test for you. You will see your results displayed right there on your computer screen. If your internet provider doesn't provide this service, then don't worry there are plenty of web sites out there that will. Just do a google search for "speed test" and you're find plenty of sites.

If you have run the speed test and found nothing wrong on their end, your connection might be off at your end. It may just be a simple case of you having to reset your modem or router; I have found this to work most of the time. The last time I found my service to be very slow; it was because the memory on my modem had been full. To be honest I don't really know for sure what kind of data this collects or uses, but as soon as the memory had been emptied, my connection was back to normal.

If there is no problem what so ever on your end, no trouble on your providers end, and the broadband speed test came back fine, there is most likely something else wrong with your computer. In this case often one of the main culprits are spyware, malware or of cause viruses. Sometimes very bad spyware can make it easier for viruses to get in to your system and then they will use up so much of your computer memory that it will make your broadband Internet run like a dial-up or even worse.

If you have done all of this and still have no idea what is causing the problem, your last step would be to have your computer looked over by a professional for any hardware problems. Most of the problems you will encounter with your computer will be no doubt software related; hardware problems take up a very small proportion of computer problems.

Once your computer is up and running again, it's always a good idea to run a broadband speed test every now and then so you can be certain that everything is running fine, and keep your computer protected from viruses, spyware and alike.