Trouble downloading with XP

[jjmclean]

I have been trying to download a 699 MB file. I usually get to around 6-12 MB and it just stops usually will just sit there until it tells me it has timed out. Twice it has said "download complete" but it has only downloaded a very small portion of the total file. A couple times it has gone as high as 20-30 MB but very seldom, never over 70 MB. I try a different mirror each time I try downloading but they all seem to work about the same. I tried to download some other files a couple days ago, three I think around 150 MB and one around 50 MB. It did the same thing on the larger files until I downloaded the smaller one, then it let me download the three larger ones. After that, i went back and tried the 699 MB file but had no luck. Has anyone ever had anything like this to happen or does anyone have any suggestions as what to check.
Thanks
Jerrry

[RealBlackStuff]

Your ISP could have a download-limit.
Maybe there's not enough space on the hard disk.
Try another browser, or in the case of FF, install the "DownThemAll!" downloader add-on.

[A31]

Your ISP could have a download-limit.

If you get 'time out' messages than an ISP with a download limit may well be the problem - or maybe the file you are trying to download is somehow 'dodgy' as in it will only be able to download about 20MB of the file...??

Try another browser

If you are using IE (6, 7 or 8 ), I recommend you switch over to Firefox or Opera or Chrome or another browser. I was an IE8 user until a few months ago and I was reluctant to switch over to another browser (as I am not the world's biggest Firefox or Google Chrome fan), but one day IE8 was just getting so slow and being so useless (and I had no toolbars or any add-ons etc installed), I went onto Opera's website and downloaded Opera and let me tell you - Opera is brilliant! It is so much quicker than IE8 and it the latest version (10.53 I believe) is full of really good stuff as standard.

Of course, you may already have made the switch that I made from IE to another, faster browser, in which case, I am guessing the ISP has a download-limit or the file is 'dodgy' - what is it you are downloading, that may help as determine what the problem is as well?

[GomJabbar]

See if this is any help: Diagnoses and treatment of black hole routers

[jjmclean]

I am running IE 8 and I'm definately not against changing, just that I'm getting up there on the age pole and it seems learning NEW things are becoming more of a task these days. That's one reason I'm trying to download this 699 MB file, it's the new Ubuntu 10.04 Linux operating system and its coming from the Ubuntu website. I don't know what's going on. I've contacted my ISP and they assure me there is nothing on their end that could be causing the problem and I've even tried it on a 98 SE machine with an older version of IE (6 I think) and it does the same thing, and I've posted on the Ubuntu forum and it seems that I'm the only person having this problem. What puzzles me is that I downloaded Ubuntu 9.04 a couple months ago and then 8.04 just a couple days before I started trying to download the new release of 10.04 and they both worked great and they were approximately the same size files. I really thought it was on Ubuntu's end probably since so many people were trying to download the new release until I tried to download the smaller files the other day and they tried to do the same thing. I did try yesterday morning about 6:00 AM, deleated all the history, cookies, etc and closed out everything I could that was running and it got up almost to 400 MB, 56% of the download I think it was before stopping. At no other time have I gotten close to that much of it downloaded. But then trying it again after that, it only got about 2-3 MB before stopping.

[GomJabbar]

If you are not using BitTorrent, try downloading with BitTorrent. For BitTorrent you need to go to a BitTorrent mirror for the download of Ubuntu. BitTorrent downloads are usually the fastest. You can even repair a corrupt download with BitTorrent. Some ISP's put the brakes on BitTorrent though.
http://www.bittorrent.com/btusers/download/?
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/downloadmirrors

If you are using Bit Torrent, try downloading without. Also, there are ftp downloads and html downloads - if one fails, try the other (both from your browser). I see a few ftp mirrors in the download mirrors list above.

Finally, there are download managers that let you resume a stalled download.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison ... d_managers
http://filezilla-project.org/client_features.php

[jjmclean]

Thanks GomJabbar. That gives me some more options. I'd heard about bittorrent but didn't really understand how it worked until you gave me those examples. I'll try that when I get enough time and see what happens. Hopefully that will work. I've looked into the download managers but there again, not really familiar with them. All your suggestions sound great, just have to try them and see what happens.
Thanks again
Jerry