Modem Speedup Guide
By: Charles Randolf
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To better understand why your connection is so slow is to understand what "speed" actually means. Many times "bandwidth" is incorrectly used to describe how fast a connection is. |
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The best way to understand this is to visit:
If you are looking for a Cable/DSL tweaking guide
check here: |
What a T3
Line looks like: Click to see a screenshot. |
1
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Test your connection by going to
the Modem Test Page
then follow these
tips and test again to see what the results are.
You can verify your results by going to: Modem
Test Page II.
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DISCLAIMER: Before making any of these settings - please
write down
your current settings before changing anything in case you need to change
anything back.
Here we show you several techniques on speeding up your 56K
connection:
Error Correction
In the early days it used to be a requirement that you have error correction
switched on everywhere, but anymore the sophisticated TCP/IP software
applications today like Internet Explorer and many others have their own
built-in error correction which surpass the inefficient modem ones.
To see the proper settings click here and here.
Junk Protocols
Removing unused Network protocols can also be beneficial in keeping
your connections working fast and also eliminating conflicts.
They can be found by going to Control Panel => Network Properties.
To see what your network properties screen should look like see
here.
Drivers
It is very important that you have the very latest drivers for your
modem,
chances are since you bought your modem there have been several newer
drivers released. Never use the Windows default drivers, these are as slow
as mud. To obtain your modem drivers go here: 56K.com
Software
There are a couple of programs that can also help your speed crisis:
Download Accelerator works by opening up several network connections
to download files, improving your downloads in some instances up to 300%.
You can download it from the creator: SpeedBit
MTU Settings
Windows by default doesn't assume that you are going to use a modem,
since they figure there will be many different network situations they can
up with some generic settings to use by default. The problem is that it
doesn't ever ask you or show you how to change this.
SmartPlay
fixes this by allowing you to make these changes.
COM Ports
You can also manipulate your COM ports to achieve better throughput.
The easiest way to do this is download and run Mini
Speed.
INIT Strings
Your modem initialization strings may also be incorrect or missing.
The modem specific init strings are important to keep your modem working
top notch. You can generally find these in your modem manual or from
your manufacturer, in case you lost your manual you can also find it here:
Modem Init Strings
The ISP
Sometimes your speed problems may just be your ISP, we found that
different ISPs definitely vary in performance. Many times ISPs allow
their networks to become overcrowded and their servers overworked.
The biggest problem is when the ISPs pipe is too small for the load.
So if you do the tweaking and still find your speeds are slow enough
to make you want to throw the keyboard at your monitor - then switch!
We suggest Mindspring or EarthLink.
Overclock Your Modem
http://www.3dgamegear.com/features/modemtweak/index.shtml
Or a mirror page (in case the original article gets deleted or moved)
Overclock Your Modem
Our Results...
We used tests coupled with analyses from NetMedic and other network
diagnostics software. After all our tweaking ~ here are our results:
We had a speed increase of
86.47% Not too
bad.
Editors Note: We are still in the process of
trying different methods
and actually improving speeds even greater.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
For those curious about even more technical details:
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/IT94/Proceedings/DDay/mogul/HTTPLatency.html
http://tweakhomepc.virtualave.net/modems/modemhow.html
Another way to speed up the loading of web pages is called Distillation which
you can read more about here:
http://www5conf.inria.fr/fich_html/papers/P48/Overview.html
RESOURCES
For comprehensive modem tweaking guides check out:
http://www.tweak3d.net/tweak/modem/
http://www.playnow.com.au/features/modem_tweak/index.asp?ID=140
http://www.gamecenter.com/Hardware/Doit/Modemtweak/
http://www.wagz.net/ping-guide.html
http://www.lagless.com/
http://www.3dspotlight.com/tweaks/modem/index.shtml