star882
Enlightened
What type of internet connection do you have?
your internet connection
- Thread starter star882
- Start date
logicnerd411
Flashlight Enthusiast
DSL is very prblematic, so I switched to Cable. Very reliable.
Chris M.
Flashlight Enthusiast
I vote "other" as you don`t go slow enough for me. I use a vintage and very reliable Telebit 28K modem. I tried a couple 56K ones, thought they were fawlty as I got crappy results. My laptop has a built in 56K one and it`s just as bad, so the two externals I got for the desktop (well, at least, the second one- the first *was* iffy) must have been trying ther best after all. I put this down to probably having a diabolical fone line, despite the fact that it`s supplied over a digital fiber cable, the same one that serves up another fone and the TV. This one`s onlyu used for the computer so I don`t actually know if it`s better or wirse than the voice line. I would complain, but they ignore me, and it isn`t worth my time having my mind melted by the endless muzak they play me when I call their customer support number.
I`m kinda used to it being slow. It`s almost more sedate, relaxed, none of this hurry, Hurry, HURRY that the world sufferes from these days. But I do wish it wasn`t so *really* slow some times.
Still, until I can afford a better desktop than my old Win98 Celeron-333 IBM PC300GL (which, surprisingly, seems to run as fast if not faster than the WinXP 1Gb-Pentium-3 Samsung Laptop) I think I`m stuck with dialling in, but it`s what I`ve always known so I don`t expect any better right now.
I`m kinda used to it being slow. It`s almost more sedate, relaxed, none of this hurry, Hurry, HURRY that the world sufferes from these days. But I do wish it wasn`t so *really* slow some times.
Still, until I can afford a better desktop than my old Win98 Celeron-333 IBM PC300GL (which, surprisingly, seems to run as fast if not faster than the WinXP 1Gb-Pentium-3 Samsung Laptop) I think I`m stuck with dialling in, but it`s what I`ve always known so I don`t expect any better right now.
Stefan
Enlightened
Currently using dial-up as well. I live out in the countryside of Alberta, but will be moving to a city shortly. Lucky us, almost every community centre in Alberta (with a library, school or hospital) will be wired for DSL access by 2005.
star882
Enlightened
Slower than 56K?
Having problems with your modem?
Both of my V.92 modems work fine.
You may have a bad line.
Having problems with your modem?
Both of my V.92 modems work fine.
You may have a bad line.
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Darell
Flashaholic
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Sounds like you're on PacBell (SBC) but probably not...
I've certainly HAD DSL problems in the past. But they've all been fixed. Whenever I'm forced onto dialup I feel like a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest. My goodness it is frustrating to wait minutes for something that would load in a second on DSL! If you build web pages, dialup is even MORE frustrating. Tried to FTP a hundred MB over dialup? Yikes. I'm spoiled, and there's no way I can go back.
Runnin' an 800MHz, 100Mhz Bus...
Always crusin' at 45,296 bps (or ~44 kbps) with a 56k modem, which I understand is never achieved because of some regulations somewhere.
Who knows.
As for you people with GHz Pentiums and XP and KNOW that it is slower than your older machines.
1) Go to the Run Command, type "MSCONFIG"
2) Choose "Selective Startup" and keep everything checked below that.
3) Click on the STARTUP tab on top, and uncheck everything (well you decide) in the box and restart.
4) If you decide to see how fast your computer can really go, uncheck everything and reboot. (Then you can go back and recheck the startup TSRs).
XP is bloatware. My friend couldn't even play any games on MAME with 1.2Ghz Laptop from Dell with XP. I told him do this, and now he can MAME all day without any slowdown.
Always crusin' at 45,296 bps (or ~44 kbps) with a 56k modem, which I understand is never achieved because of some regulations somewhere.
Who knows.
As for you people with GHz Pentiums and XP and KNOW that it is slower than your older machines.
1) Go to the Run Command, type "MSCONFIG"
2) Choose "Selective Startup" and keep everything checked below that.
3) Click on the STARTUP tab on top, and uncheck everything (well you decide) in the box and restart.
4) If you decide to see how fast your computer can really go, uncheck everything and reboot. (Then you can go back and recheck the startup TSRs).
XP is bloatware. My friend couldn't even play any games on MAME with 1.2Ghz Laptop from Dell with XP. I told him do this, and now he can MAME all day without any slowdown.
45.2kbps here as well. as far as xp goes, three computers, all XP home:
P3/450/256RAM
MP3/600/128
P3M/1G/128
the first machine (desktop; others are laptops) is close enough to the last machine: the desktop takes a while to boot, but loads apps FAST, whereas the laptop boots real fast but takes forever to launch apps. my guess is RAM.. more of that to be added winter holidays (hopefully a price break)..
but XP rox as far as i'm concerned, as long as one takes care to uncheck a lot of junk background services as noted, tweak some settings, etc. very stable. give it at least 256megs ram and you're all set.
P3/450/256RAM
MP3/600/128
P3M/1G/128
the first machine (desktop; others are laptops) is close enough to the last machine: the desktop takes a while to boot, but loads apps FAST, whereas the laptop boots real fast but takes forever to launch apps. my guess is RAM.. more of that to be added winter holidays (hopefully a price break)..
but XP rox as far as i'm concerned, as long as one takes care to uncheck a lot of junk background services as noted, tweak some settings, etc. very stable. give it at least 256megs ram and you're all set.
Just my 2 cents...
I run win2000pro for several reasons, of which are... not as bloated as xp does not have driver issues as xp, more stable than xp, can run multiple processors (when I get around to upgrading my mb) and I don't have to deal with the "activation" headaches if I do a major system change like you do with xp.
Lots of apps out there that will run great on win2k won't run so well on xp like 3dmax, cinema 4d, etc. I'll wait till xp becomes more accepted and supported by the software makers before I switch.
I run win2000pro for several reasons, of which are... not as bloated as xp does not have driver issues as xp, more stable than xp, can run multiple processors (when I get around to upgrading my mb) and I don't have to deal with the "activation" headaches if I do a major system change like you do with xp.
Lots of apps out there that will run great on win2k won't run so well on xp like 3dmax, cinema 4d, etc. I'll wait till xp becomes more accepted and supported by the software makers before I switch.
Right on. I had so much trouble with XP-Pro, I had to change to a dual-boot (ME and XP-Pro). The devices that won't or partially run on XP, I just reboot into ME to use. Not a big of a pain that I initially thought. It is a workaround for me until as mentioned above XP gets more acceptance (i.e. drivers).
NightShift
Enlightened
When in doubt, go with 98se. I always returned to that OS, after trying 2000 and ME. Although im running XP now which is good.
I get ~5.5mbit downloads, 1mbit upload - im happy
I get ~5.5mbit downloads, 1mbit upload - im happy
PlayboyJoeShmoe
Flashaholic
This is kind of a trick question/trick answer.
My 56K answer covers my home 'puter. It is 56K because it is such a dinasaur (sp?) that I don't think it could even handle anything faster.
Where I am now, we are on DSL. Truth be known, I prefer my 56K. This is due to DSL be very delay prone ie: click and wait up to 3 minutes for something to actually happen.
Anyone else find DSL this problematic?
My 56K answer covers my home 'puter. It is 56K because it is such a dinasaur (sp?) that I don't think it could even handle anything faster.
Where I am now, we are on DSL. Truth be known, I prefer my 56K. This is due to DSL be very delay prone ie: click and wait up to 3 minutes for something to actually happen.
Anyone else find DSL this problematic?
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I sometimes get this problem with my DSL connection.
I've now found that if nothing happens within 5-10 seconds of clicking a link just by clicking on the same link again, the page will normally load almost instantly.
Does this work for you ?
geepondy
Flashlight Enthusiast
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">OK, I'm trying to go from memory here. My DSL is very fast, no waiting when clicking. I had that problem originally though. It happened on every fourth or fifth site I visited. From research I found out that the stupid win poet software that the DSL ISP (Verizon) used would try to renegotiate a IP address, hence the delay. Basically to fix the problem, I had to go into my TCP/IP settings and specify an IP address along with a subnet mask (I don't even know what that means). I no longer have to do that and I'm not sure why whether Verizon finally straightened things on their end or the fact that I don't install any software at all as the router handles the winpoet end of things. Also I believe, using raspoet instead of winpoet solved the problem. If anybody thinks this problem applies to them, I can provide more detailed instructions on how to alter the settings. Believe me though, the fifty dollar router has been my best computer purchase in years.
Icebreak
Flashlight Enthusiast
I run ME because the machine came loaded with it and it is still under warrantee. Business XP we have no problems with. XP and Pro XP for home use seems to be a nightmare. When I go out of warrantee I'll go back to 98se.
Microsoft will soon be offering 2004, then 04MarchE, then 04MarchTuesdayTheSixteenthE, then TomorrowE, then, ThisAfternoonE, then...well, it is irritating. Maybe DOS 3.X wasn't such a bad idea.
Microsoft will soon be offering 2004, then 04MarchE, then 04MarchTuesdayTheSixteenthE, then TomorrowE, then, ThisAfternoonE, then...well, it is irritating. Maybe DOS 3.X wasn't such a bad idea.
Monsters_Inc
Banned
I still with my 33.6K modem I bought back in '95 - still reliably chugging away everyday.
James S
Flashlight Enthusiast
For some people the low speed of their modems just pushes them over the edge:
Angry Janesville Man Barbecues Slow Modem
http://www.channel3000.com/news/1773494/detail.html
Right now my connection is a cable modem running through an Alpha linux machine which is my firewall to my main machine. The speed of the connection is very good downstream. I routinely get 100+k a second during downloads, sometimes up to 250k. But the upstream is limited at a pitiful and painful 128k (bits not bytes) so the upstream is only a little better than twice the speed of a 56k modem connected at 56k.
I've only had 2 outages of a length longer than 10 minutes or so in the last 18 months and both were fixed very quickly but the local cable company and just required that I power cycle the modem.
I think it's sad that our 2 major choices for "broadband" are the cable company and the phone company, the 2 companies with the worst customer service in the history of corporate america. As long as your connection stays up it works very good, if it goes down and you actually have to call in then you're hosed.
My favorite support story was with the phone company and the ISDN line I had at my last house. (No cable or DSL when we moved there, kind of out of town) It went down on a friday afternoon and then everybody at the local phone company went home for the weekend. So on monday I was back on the phone with them and they gave me the standard run around that it must be my modem or my computer and asking me what browser I was running (even though the connection was simply down, so no browser no matter how clever would have been able to make the connection) Finally I got my call routed to some actual tech, who happened to be sitting next to one of the network guys. And I guess something clicked in his memory cause he told me to "wait a sec" as the other guy ran into some back room. He came back literally 7 seconds later and said "Try it now" and it was back up. I had been being given the run around for 3 hours on the phone after being down for 4 days and it took them 7 seconds to fix it once they admitted it was their problem and not mine! I guess they left me unplugged, or perhaps he just gave the router a swift kick or something. If it weren't such a good story to tell it would have really made me angry;)
-James
Angry Janesville Man Barbecues Slow Modem
http://www.channel3000.com/news/1773494/detail.html
Right now my connection is a cable modem running through an Alpha linux machine which is my firewall to my main machine. The speed of the connection is very good downstream. I routinely get 100+k a second during downloads, sometimes up to 250k. But the upstream is limited at a pitiful and painful 128k (bits not bytes) so the upstream is only a little better than twice the speed of a 56k modem connected at 56k.
I've only had 2 outages of a length longer than 10 minutes or so in the last 18 months and both were fixed very quickly but the local cable company and just required that I power cycle the modem.
I think it's sad that our 2 major choices for "broadband" are the cable company and the phone company, the 2 companies with the worst customer service in the history of corporate america. As long as your connection stays up it works very good, if it goes down and you actually have to call in then you're hosed.
My favorite support story was with the phone company and the ISDN line I had at my last house. (No cable or DSL when we moved there, kind of out of town) It went down on a friday afternoon and then everybody at the local phone company went home for the weekend. So on monday I was back on the phone with them and they gave me the standard run around that it must be my modem or my computer and asking me what browser I was running (even though the connection was simply down, so no browser no matter how clever would have been able to make the connection) Finally I got my call routed to some actual tech, who happened to be sitting next to one of the network guys. And I guess something clicked in his memory cause he told me to "wait a sec" as the other guy ran into some back room. He came back literally 7 seconds later and said "Try it now" and it was back up. I had been being given the run around for 3 hours on the phone after being down for 4 days and it took them 7 seconds to fix it once they admitted it was their problem and not mine! I guess they left me unplugged, or perhaps he just gave the router a swift kick or something. If it weren't such a good story to tell it would have really made me angry;)
-James
Kirk
Enlightened
56K modem, usually connecting at 26K. Cable stops 2 miles away. Too far for DSL and too cheap for satellite. Oh well. I get by.
Kirk
Kirk
