Very Slow Dial Up

I have an HP Pavilion XL776 computer with a Lucent Wildwire Modem, SBC/Yahoo! ISP and am running Windows XP Home. I have 2 issues: (1) I can only connect at 16.8 or at best 19.2. We live way out in the country so dial up is my only option. I have tried initialization strings from a Prodigy but they seem to do nothing. After a certain amount of time (while reading BBS looking for others with this problem), I start getting This Page Cannot Be Display and my computer seems like it has disconnected but it hasn't. (2) Within minutes I can have over 5000K in my temporary files! Why is this happening? I have to constantly empty my cache.

Ya'll have been wonderful in helping me in the past and hope someone has some answers this time too.

 

I too live in a rural setting with a terrible dialup speed. My neighbor just a half mile further from the phone company station gets double my speed. A call to the Phone Company got this reply, "You are paying for voice on a telephone, so if you can call and hear you are getting what you pay for." They would not attempt repairing or checking the line.

There is a way to tick the Registry into not putting fully loaded URLs in the cache. I don't know how to do this. Seen it somewhere on this Forum and did it with the instructions. Cannot remember what it was. That helps with the URLs not completely loading. Hopefully someone on the Forum will read your post that knows and will tell you how to do this.

So, I've been no help but sympathize with your low connection speed.

 

linkays_tx--Yes, I commiserate also.
BUT, while the phone company won't help, maybe your ISP will?? Especially if you pay them for the service. If they won't help, do you have any alternative ISP's available?
http://www.thelist.com/
Now, back to what is happening.
1) The connection speeds you indicate are miserable, but if you are far out in the country, maybe that is the best you can do. Have you asked your neighbors whether they are getting better? If they are (and use the same ISP), perhaps there is something wrong with your phone line, especially the last bit from the junction box into your house or even within your house. Perhaps you have excessive noise on your line. Pick up a phone, dial 2, listen. What do you hear?
2) The thing that really bothers me is that the "Page cannot be displayed" thing occurs only after you have been using the connection and surfing for a while, correct? Is this on all sites, or just certain ones? Sites you have successfully visited earlier in the session?
What happens if you click Refresh?
The common solutions for "Page cannot be displayed" are here
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=812336
and perhaps some ideas here from earlier versions of Windows
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;241344
but as I say these are usually helpful only when you cannot reach any page right from the start of a session.
3) I would not be concerned with adding 5000Kb to your Temporary Internet Files during a session. That is not really so much, unless you are approaching full use of your PC's hard drive capacity. Of course, you should clear TIF out from time to time (I clean my out every day or two), but it should not be necessary during an individual session. Or are you saying that the "Page cannot be displayed" messages go away (at least for a while) after you do that?
4) I assume you are closing most windows as you go along rather than leaving all windows open from all sites you have visited.

 

Thank You

I use to connect at 21.6 or 24.0 consistently with another ISP and that is about the norm for where I live. Naturally, when you call your ISP, they say it's the phone company and vice versa. I have a dedicated line for my computer and the dial tone sounds fine when I hook a phone to it.

The "cannot display page" does not respond to Refresh. It's actually like I have lost my connection with the internet. I have to literally close out the page (there's no rhyme or reason when it will happen or what site I'm on), disconnect from my ISP and then reconnect and then everything will be fine until it starts happening again. If I'm playing an online game, it will even tell me I've lost connection when my computer tells me I'm still connected.

 

Concerning becoming disconnected from the internet, in the Control Panel, click on your dial up connection and click "properties" then "options ". Make sure your comp is not set to disconnect after so many minutes (drop down menu- click on "never "). Just thinking perhaps your comp is fooled into thinking your connection is inactive for some reason and is "hanging up ".
HTH
Johanna

 

Within minutes I can have over 5000K in my temporary files! Why is this happening? I have to constantly empty my cache.

Set your temp internet files to
- check for page updates automatically
- allow a small 'maximum' amount of space. But the 5000K you mention is only 5Mb so not really much and if your max is set to that, it should dump any excess without your having to do anything.

 

Hi.

For linkays_tx. Your problem sounds just like an ISP problem, not the phone company. It's usually their equipment and they ain't gonna change. I would recommend Earthlink if you can get it.

A note on phone line conditions. One of the tricks being used to get a stable line is to subscribe to caller id. That usually requires a digital capable line. The phone company has to clear up the line for it to work. After a couple of months cancel it. You'll wind up with a good line. This doesn't always work but ....

Giles

linkays_tx, love your site but where is your Texas bbq recipe. Everybody has a bbq recipe.

 

Hi again.

Something you said bothers me. Newt touched on it also.

The browser cache governs itself. You don't have to worry about it "filling up" and the amount is indeed low. I would increase the cache to around 20Megs or at least 10 or 15 if you have the hard disk space available. After that, just forget it. When it gets full it doesn't hurt anything. The browsers will dump the old stuff automatically as it stores new stuff. You don't have to flush the cache at all.

You can watch this in action by checking the cache size after it gets up around the megs specified. It will actually go over that amount. For example, set it for 1Meg and it will go up around 1.4 or 1.7 megs and oscillate up and down as old stuff is dumped and new stuff is written.

If it fills up it is just doing its job. That's normal.

Giles

 

I read all the above and have experienced all as I live rural also. Will
just have to grin and bear MOST of it.

Here is what I did-and it works!! With my
cursor hovering over my modem icon in sys tray I would get 26-48Kbps. After the following, I get 115.2Kbpsl

Find the advanced tab in your modem-
In the strings box type " &fx ". no
quotation marks. If AT is there, delete it
first.

I would get the page cannot be displayed also- My ISP dumped me but
the PC says I'm connected. In a minute
or two my PC dials up and then I refresh
if I have to. Joe

 

Hi joeskys.

The 115.2 is the speed between your computer and your modem and doesn't reflect the speed you are connected to your ISP. The changes you made caused the display to default to that figure. Normally there is a conversion in the registry that will reflect the speed you connect to the ISP. The &fx must be changing something in displaying the connect speed. A speed of 48bps is very good if you can connect at that most often.

The modem command &fx normally is "restore factory default configuration ". The command &f is normally followed by either 0(zero) or 1(one). Zero is for pc's and 1 is for the Macs. More than likely your modem is just assuming 0(zero) for the x and restoring the factory stored default configuration as if you just turned your computer on.

I had this same situation with an ISP that was starting to go under financially. Everything would just stop. Still connected but couldn't get anything. I had a time checker that updated the computer to the atomic clock. I could run that and it would almost always clear up the ISP freeze and away I could go again without having to disconnect and redial.

Giles

 

Wow!

I tried adding the " &fx " and now my computer says I'm connecting at 115.2 too. I've about decided I'm not sure these numbers means anything but I know that at 16.8, I sure have a hard time downloading things. I got the following initialization string from HP's site and, though it didn't show any difference except that I consistently connected at 19.2, it seemed the pages loaded faster: AT&F&C1&D2&K3+MS=V34. Maybe this string will help someone else. But right now, everything seems to be running much better and I deeply thank everyone who has given their suggestions!!

 

Hi All,

I too have a deep country home and been through the hoops with the phone company and ISP when despite all efforts my Lucent modem would only produce 21k, all to nothing.

There was nothing wrong with the modem, it worked fine everywhere else - but just out of curiosity I fitted a oldish Olitec 56k2 modem and got an instant 44k! every time.

Maybe its a line thing, but worth a go.

Gizmo

 

Hi.

You might download a little program called "Speed-O-Meter" by FreeTurtle. It is free and it is very very good. It will give you the actual true speed over your internet connection. You can get it here:

http://www.freeturtles.com/

There is a difference between your line speed and actual data throughput. Most all modems today (for a long time now) will compress the data and send it over the lines. The receiving modem will uncompress the data thus giving you a higher throughput data speed than the actual line speed to your ISP.

Also, it appears that you may be using a 33.6 modem. If so you might check around and see how the speeds are with someone with a V.90 modem. The older 33.6 modems couldn't reject line noise as good as the newer ones and a V.90 may be better. Something to check into.

If you do have a K56 or V.90 then the string from Hp limits transmission speed to 33.6. (I know if you're connecting at 16.8 it wouldn't make much different, just passing on info.)

That string from HP is the standard default for HP and your modem should be set for that when you turn your computer on.

Happy motoring.

Giles

Also, it makes a big difference whether your modem is a WinModem or a hardware modem. WinModems are famous for problems with the line. I've heard that many work perfectly tho.