software modem retruns data at snail pace!

[ARCITS]

I have just installed a Dynamode M56PCI/S-SMART modem on a PC with the following specifications:

Cyrix M II-300 processor
28Mb RAM

Installation has gone fine but performance is to say the least non existent.

The modem connects at a reported speed of around 33k but Internet Explorer returns pages painfully slowly (that slow in fact you can see the graphics painting on the screen). It takes several minutes for a page to be returned.

Please can you suggest anything I can try?

I would have expected the above specification to meet with your minimum requirements for this modem.

I'm not expecting lightening performance but I should be doing better than this surely.

O/S is Windows ME

Thanks & Best Regards,


Andy.

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Hello Andy

Firstly, get rid of WINDOWS ME in favour of a better OS, not that ME will be the culprit here, it's just a lousy system. Next get some more RAM and clear all the rubbish off your system by deleting TEMP files and WINDOWS Temporary Internet Files.

Your connection speed is not that bad, could be better, but not tortuously slow. In CONTROL PANEL, open MODEM icon and go into PROPERTIES and make MAXIMUM SPEED 115200. If you are plugging in to a wall socket via a telephone cable extension, that can slow you down also, but often the slowness is caused by too much activity with your ISP.

There are some optimizer programmes available for free download. Have a look for OPTIMIZER XP by DEADKNIGHT or EASYCLEANER from ToniArts

http://www.saunalahti.fi/tonihele

Regards

Phil

Please tell me if the answer I gave was helpful or a bus ride out. Without your feedback I won't know.

 

[ARCITS]

Hi Phil,

Thanks for your prompt response!
You've partly confirmed some of the things I suspected!
This is not my own PC but a friends.
I installed ME just because it was to hand (well it's a good enough reason!).
The phone connection is on an extension and I have asked my freind to call the telecoms provider and turn up the gain on the line.
I had already put in the back of my mind the addition of more memory although as he is on a tight budget this may not be possible?
I use the same ISP on my own PC (500MHz Pentium III) and I regularly get a connection of around 44K and not problems!

The Me install is clean and there is nothing else on the PC.
I have installed modems before for friends and although I have had problems (particularly with Software modems) the results have never been this bad!

I don't know whether I fully expressed how the system is completely drained of power when the interenet connection is up. It took around 3 minutes to bring back a page which I would get back in 10-15 seconds so there is something drastically wrong here. You can see IE painting the graphics it's that slow.
I have seen a 33K connection speed before and there is no way this is anywhere near! 3K would be being kind!
Other PC's which I set up have AMD 200MHz and Pentium I 75MHz processors and performance is okay to good, but in all cases acceptable!

What sort of a drain on CPU power does a software modem have compared to a hardware modem? Surely a 300MHz processor can cope with the modem activity and a word document or something else at the same time?

I know it's a backwards step but would I be better installing Win 95? As I mentioned they are on a budget and new to computers so I wouldn't think they would mind.

Any further advice appreciated and thanks again for your response!


Andy

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

You're right about the PC being able to cope with a connection and saving a word document. It occurred to me after posting that this PC sounds like it has a lot in the startup. Go to START-RUN-type in MSCONFIG-hit enter-START UP- and have a look at what's running. If it's a lot then uncheck all but SYSTRAY and REGISTRYCHECK-APPLY-REBOOT. See if that's any better.

What ISP?

Personally, I think 3.11 is better than ME so 95 definitely. Regards

Phil

Please tell me if the answer I gave was helpful or a bus ride out. Without your feedback I won't know.

 

[ARCITS]

Nothing at all running at Startup.
ISP - freenet.co.uk
Anyway thanks fro your help.
What I'll probably do is cleardown system again and install Win95 (end of this week) and take it from there.
The other thing I considered is whether anything was leftover from the previous PCI modem that was installed?

Thanks again you've been most helpful.


Andy