Random tech problem a friend is experiencing: she has an asus 1215N with win7 x86 ult and is having problems with POL. Downloaded off steam, ran without steam, and when it goes to check for pol updates, it goes from normal speed to terribly slow. Check files takes 2-5minutes PER FILE to check! This should take like a second or less normally per file.
She kept most of the useful asus software on there, killed the junkware, updated to newest nvidia drivers, uses avira antivirus and win7's builtin firewall. I had her try uninstalling the steam version and download win7 POL from playonline and she reported no change - still slow as hell only when it's connecting to the internet and checking files (like 500 files to check total). She let it run overnight but it crapped out somewhere in there.
I installed/updated just POL on my machine (also win7 x86, worked fine) and sent her a zip of the directory so it'd be fully up to date, and while she managed to input her login, it goes back to super-slow upon trying to retrieve her friendlist, usually just timing out after about 10 minutes. I got her to uncheck QoS on her wireless card and disable avira temporarily to no change as well...
Really have no idea what to try next. POL is the only problem for her so far.