whenever i am logged onto pokerstars and i am streaming a podcast, youtube videos, whatever:

the buffering/streaming process stops.

the poker stars lobby pops up and says "connecting" or whatever.

after 20 or seconds or so, the connection to pokerstars is fixed.

during that period, all the buffering/streaming on my other applications goes down and will not start again until the pokerstars lobby reconnects.

after the pokerstars lobby reconnects, my other applications may or may not start again. depending on the application, i may have to hit refresh, close the application and open it again, or i may have to renew my IP address.

this ONLY happens when i have pokerstars open. my connection never lags or stops when poker stars is not opoen. i play full tilt once in a while, but i have never had any problems.

does anyone know more about this?

It would take a pretty terrible internet connection for PokerStars to slow down your other stuff.

my connection is not the problem.

it is only when i run stars that i have any problems.

i have some virus/application that is conflicting with the stars software and causing this.

i was wondering if anyone else experienced the same or if anyone knew anything about this

I have been having the exact same problems at FTP. I have the exact same problems as you mentioned. It is extremely frustrating. I do agree with you that it seems to be the worst when FTP is running.

I wish I knew more but all I have is my experience.

get a faster internet connection.

this post is like complaining that your car slows down when you turn on the air conditioning and pack in 4 200lb passengers.

bandwidth has nothing to do with it. it happens whether i am running stars and many other apps or if i am running stars alone. the connection will periodically go dead (about once every 15 minutes) for 20 seconds or so, and then the poker stars lobby will reconnect and the connection will be fine again

Do a hardreset on your modem / router or both and turn your wireless off (if you are using it on your pc/laptop) and restart your laptop/PC and try again.

I've found this to help.