22 replies to this topic

[RJB]

I was talking with a fellow the other day about my very slow computer, (56K modem) and he said that he thinks there is something I can buy, plug it in and make my computer faster. Is this possible? thanks
RB

[tracer]

the issue is too complex and extensive to cover well here, but it is likely that your access could be improved quite a bit. you can read up online and acquire the best possible modem and get data-compression capability that will, in some instances, allow you to receive data at greater speed just because it's compressed, since the modem won't physically be able to push data through faster. you can research and try to configure your modem with the best possible initialization string. i have not dealt with these things in many years, but when i did, i found that there were people who had gotten some really good results (comparatively speaking) from tweaking their initializations. you can find websites that you can hit to check how much your speed varies and how much "packet-loss" you might be having in the data you send/receive. "line noise" in your phone lines can be a major issue, and you might be able to bug the phone company enough to get you a "clean" enough line to greatly help. because every time a packet of data gets dropped, there has to be error-checking, detection of the loss, and retransmission of the packet, and all that takes time. the only other thing i'm aware of that could help would be if whatever isp you're connecting to has an "upgrade" on the data transmission/compression protocols at their end. again, the issue is figuring out how to send/receive better compressed data, since you can only physically jam so much down a dial-up pipe given current hardware limitations.

bottom line, there's no incentive really, in my opinion, for this situation to get a lot better over time. only perhaps 10% of internet connections remain dial-up, and the content of the internet has run way out ahead of what dial-up can deal with, and will only get worse. right now the issue is everybody is starting to use the internet to view and download full-length movies and such, and the broadband pipes and wireless frequencies are completely getting filled up with that data.

an overview of what can be done in your situation can be found at this link.

i think you should move to the city. we're blazin' fast at everything we do, except preppin' crabs.

p.s. - sometimes the problem is the computer. make sure you don't have viruses, trojans, spyware, etc. and check how much free memory you have to be running programs with. "slow" can be due to a lot of things...

p.p.s. - some of the things coming to your computer are already compressed and optimized to the best extent possible, and can't be improved on, so if you do go to increased compression to achieve speed, it will only help on some stuff, that isn't already well-compressed.

p.p.p.s. - be careful when you're googling info on dial-up, or you'll be reading some great help info from 1995 that is currently worthless. check the dates on articles you read.

p.p.p.p.s. - wow. never heard of this before. pretty wild. kinda like having mama bird pre-digest your food for you. proxy me!

p.p.p.p.p.s. - i always liked u.s. robotics modems, but that was twenty years ago. probably still good. hey, look, a modem troubleshooting website! ==> tweakin' is fun.

[texaswoodie]

I have a Verizon cell phone connection. I don't have a card which is $60 a month. I connect through my cell phone. It's called "tethering" and it's only $25 a month. Fastest, cheapest connection I've ever had.

Check with a local Verizon store. Of course if you're not in a broadband area it's no better than lan line dialup.

[tracer]

texaswoodie, on 20 January 2010 - 02:28 PM, said:

...if you're not in a broadband area...

man, i been under the impression they barely pipe sunlight to where he is...dunno...

[pleecan]

RB: I am also IT guy for my company (computer geek).... all self taught... build my first 386 computer in 1989 after reading a book called How to Build your 286 and save a bundle.... I am also still on dial up at home and my system is several years old IBM P4 desktop refurbished that cost me $59 with XP pro..... an it runs fast.

Hardware wise my is a cheap external USB modem with V.92 protocol...Far East Clone no name brand from Ebay sub $20.


One of the key reasons why computer bogs is that it may be infected with a number of spyware from normal surfing on the net. Make sure you have some sort of spyware, anit virus package install. Run some sort of disk cleanup to remove junk files. I had good success with Nortons Systemworks to correct the registry. You need to flush your cookies, temporary files, bowsing history frequently. Lastly you need to defrag your hardrive. Let me know if you need a Geek to English translation on any of the above points. PL

Edited by pleecan, 20 January 2010 - 06:19 PM.

[MikeD]

Make sure you back up all of your important files, photos, etc. before you cleanup and defrag (of course you should be backing up your important stuff anyway, but I know how time flies - when was my last backup? ).

One other item (unless I missed it above) is more memory. Adding the maximum amount of memory your computer can support can help speed it up, but it will do nothing for your coneection speed.

[tracer]

pleecan, on 20 January 2010 - 06:08 PM, said:

RB: I am also IT guy for my company (computer geek).... all self taught... build my first 386 computer in 1989 after reading a book called How to Build your 286 and save a bundle.... I am also still on dial up at home and my system is several years old IBM P4 desktop refurbished that cost me $59 with XP pro..... an it runs fast.

Hardware wise my is a cheap external USB modem with V.92 protocol...Far East Clone no name brand from Ebay sub $20.


One of the key reasons why computer bogs is that it may be infected with a number of spyware from normal surfing on the net. Make sure you have some sort of spyware, anit virus package install. Run some sort of disk cleanup to remove junk files. I had good success with Nortons Systemworks to correct the registry. You need to flush your cookies, temporary files, bowsing history frequently. Lastly you need to defrag your hardrive. Let me know if you need a Geek to English translation on any of the above points. PL

all good tips from a general perspective, but if you get rid of all your cached pages and cookies from your favorite sites, then you'll just ending up waiting for them to all reload every time you visit. but occasional housecleaning is definitely a good idea.

a primary concern when your computer is snailing on you online is to figure out which (or what combination) of the many things that could be a problem are being the problem. the server at the other end, your computer, the network in between, your phone line, the modem, the settings and initialization, the software, some malware, or maybe even a little bit of all of those things.

p.s. - almost forgot. one of the things i do to speed up my online experience is get the cat off my lap and type faster.

[RJB]

Holy Cow!! You guys sure know your stuff!!! And tracer, I do get a little sunlight. But I hate to leave my cave in the day light and it burns my eyes! Ha!!! Besides trying to buy something to speed up my computer, I have done nothing of the things you guys have mentioned? I do have Norton though. Seems like I should do some 'clean up' here first before I do anything else?
RB

[tracer]

RJB, on 20 January 2010 - 09:11 PM, said:

Holy Cow!! You guys sure know your stuff!!! And tracer, I do get a little sunlight. But I hate to leave my cave in the day light and it burns my eyes! Ha!!! Besides trying to buy something to speed up my computer, I have done nothing of the things you guys have mentioned? I do have Norton though. Seems like I should do some 'clean up' here first before I do anything else?
RB

is your computer slow off-line running programs too? or just online?

[RJB]

tracer, on 20 January 2010 - 09:14 PM, said:

is your computer slow off-line running programs too? or just online?

Just online. and big email files!

[tracer]

RJB, on 20 January 2010 - 09:30 PM, said:

Just online. and big email files!

then i would start trying to troubleshoot your existing connection and hardware and see what can be improved.

start studying modems and how they are configured and initialized and what can be tweaked. and check how many packets you're dropping. it isn't just the speed - it's also the accuracy.

[RJB]

tracer, on 20 January 2010 - 09:32 PM, said:

then i would start trying to troubleshoot your existing connection and hardware and see what can be improved.

start studying modems and how they are configured and initialized and what can be tweaked. and check how many packets you're dropping. it isn't just the speed - it's also the accuracy.

tracer, i have absolutley no idea how to find out how my modem is 'configured and initialized'! and im still not certain what a packet is? Let alone dropping any? Plus, do I have the time? Wow!!! Im feeling a bit overwhelmed right now!
RB

[pleecan]

One trick is to clean the phone line contacts with a Q tip and rubbing alcohol (isopropyl)to remove oxides and dirt. PL

[tracer]

RJB, on 20 January 2010 - 09:47 PM, said:

tracer, i have absolutley no idea how to find out how my modem is 'configured and initialized'! and im still not certain what a packet is? Let alone dropping any? Plus, do I have the time? Wow!!! Im feeling a bit overwhelmed right now!
RB

start reading five to ten minutes a day online about modems, etc. over time, you'll come to know quite a bit.

[RJB]

[quote name='tracer' date='20 January 2010 - 05:49 PM' timestamp='1264034952' post='130310']
start reading five to ten minutes a day online about modems, etc. over time, you'll come to know quite a bit.
[/quote

Hey tracer, any way I could invite you over for dinner and drinks and I watch you clean up my computer after dinner? That sounds like my cup of tea. and easy. we then could talk fossil stories way into the night! About 11 pm for me, sad to say! Ha!!!
RB

[tracer]

[quote name='RJB' date='20 January 2010 - 07:04 PM' timestamp='1264035885' post='130314']
[quote name='tracer' date='20 January 2010 - 05:49 PM' timestamp='1264034952' post='130310']
start reading five to ten minutes a day online about modems, etc. over time, you'll come to know quite a bit.
[/quote

Hey tracer, any way I could invite you over for dinner and drinks and I watch you clean up my computer after dinner? That sounds like my cup of tea. and easy. we then could talk fossil stories way into the night! About 11 pm for me, sad to say! Ha!!!
RB
[/quote]

sounds too much like a relationship, sweetie. and i've seen your picture.

[dfwphotoguy]

http://www.speedtest.net/

Lets start by testing your internet connection. That will tell us a ton right off the bat.

[tracer]

dfwphotoguy, on 21 January 2010 - 03:45 PM, said:

http://www.speedtest.net/

Lets start by testing your internet connection. That will tell us a ton right off the bat.

i have used that test numerous times, and of course it does show ul/dl speed. but then assuming your results are lower than they should be, you still need to figure out why to fix it. there are other sites that offer more specific tests, but those interested in finding out what problems they may be having should consider reading up on "ping", "pathping", and "tracert" commands that can be run from command prompts to check what's happening between you and whatever url you wish. the reported information can be very revealing. perhaps a year ago i was having a bad problem all of a sudden with very slow internet and i was able to complain to a service provider regarding specifically which of their routing locations was causing the problem. there was nothing else that could be done from my end, other than i could have changed isp's. anyway, the problem got resolved. the important point is that being able to run a simple test showed me that the problem had nothing to do with my machine, modem, router, house lines, etc., which are always the first stuff providers want to mess with. i had to get a supervisor and tell them to stop focusing on my stuff, which wasn't the problem.

[LanceH]

I've noticed that in recent years webpages have become so incredibly bloated code-wise and with links and connections to outside content that even the simplest page takes longer to load and for the browser to interpret. Often you have to sit and wait for the browser to full render the page and let go of it so you can scroll.

[Tony Eaton]

As I recall from past experience with dialup by far the most important thing is to have a "hardware modem". I.E., one that has chips to process the signals in the modem itself versus offloading the processing somewhere else. These will run on Linux and will run on very slow computers. Seems like the hardware modems handle poor line quality better too.

Virtually all modem enabled computers off of a store shelf have crappy built in "win modems" that from my experience are %25 slower that the HW modems I am describing above.

I am not sure, I may have one of these antiques sitting around destined for the trash bin? Let me know of you are interested and I could dig for it.

Regarding spyware, spybot search and destroy is my fav free anti spyware program. Resurrects one of my family's computers every few months from what malware gets loaded. Online games can be bad for spyware.