Just a beginner looking to figure our how to monitor my network?

[Logun]

Hello;

Very new to everything so please ELI5.

I've recently upgraded to Win 8.1 from 7 and in that time I've noticed a slight degradation in my internet. First it was on bootup - My internet would never connect. When I would go to reinstall it, it would connect at that point - right before I reinstalled the drivers each time. I even tried waiting a couple minutes without the net connecting but once I fired up the intel driver install the net would turn on every time.

Then it was the Twitch streams - now I know twitch has always been touchy but it got to be a bit much on even the professional streams.

Next up was Pokerstars. I would start dropping connections randomly while playing but the rest of my internet would be fine. The tracer app and report on PS itself didn't tell me anything obvious (and as I said I don't know a whole lot so I'm only looking for bright red letters spelling out THIS IS THE PROBLEM HERE!!)

Speedtest tells me nothing is wrong. 50MB down and between 2.5 - 3.5 up.

What apps might I down load to help me out and what is the best resource to learn a few basics on what to look for?

My router is a Negear WNDR4500. Firmware is up to date but stock. During all issues, my wife is usually (but not always) streaming Neflix at the same time.

 

[kanewolf]

What are your DNS servers? Are you using google 8.8.8.8, etc or are you using your ISP's? Slow DNS can act like many other problems....

 

[Logun]

I do have it set to use Google's, yes.

A couple things I have done is to add a QoS rule and add in a couple port forwarding rules as well. Either it's coincidence or it's had an effect to some extend. Not 100% but about a 40% improvement I would guess

 

[kanewolf]

Is your connection wired or wireless to the router? If wireless, then try a wired connection.

 

[Logun]

This is a hard wired connection. On a 50Mb connection I would assume that I could watch a twitch stream and wifey could stream netflix without interfering with each other.

Actually Netflix rarely so much as hiccups on the media PC.

I have updated my driver from 18.x to 19.x from Intel and I've seen a positive effect thus far, however I've not really pushed things much since sunday morning.