7.2 Connection Speed

A few weeks ago my PC decided to dial up at no faster than 7.2, dial up connection, nothing else available out here in the boonies. I am running XP with no new software/hardware and no changes. Call the ISP and go thru the normal routine, check settings, check modem, delete connection and make a new connection. Does not help. Drive my PC to ISP six to eight miles away for a bench test. They detect very little malware and get it to dial up at 52 once and 51 the second time. Bring it back home run AVG and Spy Doctor, the computer is now clean, still dialing up the same. Pull out my daughter's laptop (XP also) that has never been used for the internet and set it up. It dials up at 37 - 41 every time. Call the telephone company they check the lines and find a "cut line" outside, repair it and still the PC is the same. Take my PC to work to the IS manager and it dials up for him at 32. He scans the system and does not find anything, it's clean. Bring it back home and again 7.2. The laptop continues to dial up at good speeds. We have used the same telephone line, moved the PC to another room, unplugged all phones, all to no avail. Any ideas? Thank you in advance.

 

It could be four things.

Either a bad modem....

Modem needs updated drivers

Modem needs to be moved to another PCI slot.

The modem configuration needs to be reset to defaults.

I know this may not make sense, but from the laptop to the desktop perspective, makes me wonder.

 

Oh no, please take your time. I appreciate your consideration. I am at my wits end with it. My two IS experts at work are tired of me! One suggested that I move so I can get a "real" connection and the other suggested that I call in a priest because my house is haunted. I am currently working off of the 12 year old's laptop and she won't share much longer. Needless to say, at the speed of 7.2 I cannot open explorer.

 

We used the same wire. And I have tried a different one on both, good speed on the laptop and 7.2 on the PC. The ISP checked the modem and said it was good. I also checked it through the trouble shooting and it was good.

 

Do you have, more than one dial-up number to access?

Also, does a reboot help?

 

We only have one dial up number. A reboot doesn't help at all.

 

Sure. What would you like me to do after reboot?

 

7.2 kbps again. I give up for the night. I'll try more tomorrow.

 

I appreciate the help. Please let me know if you have any more ideas.

 

aakers you've got two good guys helping and I don't want to muddy the waters, but I have a suggestion that hasn't been offered yet. When you dial-up, evoke Task Manager first and take a look at the tasks running and the amount they use, do the same with your poor beleagured 12 yr olds laptop and report the difference back here it may just point us in the right direction.

I dumped AVG awhile back due to it hogging time, but that may not be the case with you. I have found that a lot of Firewalls and antivirus's work just peachy with Broadband/Cable but hate dial-up. Same old story the rural people get the short end of the proverbal stick, and get the comments your IP guys gave you?????

 

Okay, looked at the task managers and they are very similar. The only thing that jumps out at me on the PC is guard.exe running at 2,212 and the laptop is not showing this. Any suggestions? Should I update the drivers? Can someone talk me through this? What about changing ports as someone suggested earlier?

 

Timmie you have been duly reported to the R.C.T.P.

should read "switching" aakers all though our TimW does give some good advice, you will find that sometimes we ALL go blind trying to read his post's

 

Yes, I tried switching plugs for the modem. Here it didn't make any difference, when I did it at work both would dial up fine, 31 and 32, I think. I also tried stopping AVG and everything else last week but that still didn't make any difference in the dial up speed. What am I overlooking?

 

Can't see it being a driver issue unless you have downloaded something new, did you update to IE7 recently like most did, another suggestion would be to download Firefox or Opera Browsers and see if that helps. Opera is a lot faster for me when I have to use Dial-Up............Hang in there aakers, your not working on it alone any more

 

I'd check the registry. If you run a "front end" applet to your connection supplied by your ISP, there may have been corruption. When I first hooked up to my current ISP I did so using Administrator credentials to install their "front end" applet. Later, I reverted to my regular user credentials, and for a while everything was fine. However, during one of my sessions, they attempted force an upgrade to their applet. Naturally, they couldn't, but my machine was left in a half crap condition. Consequently, I now make my connection to the ISP, without their applet and it's much better. However, to fix the problems that were left in the registry, I ran TCP Optimizer. It fixed everthing in the registry in one go. You can get a copy from MajorGeeks here.
.

 

Hi, has anyone heard of windows explorer running the cpu at 100 % slowing the pc to a halt?
Is it a new problem.
It may be worth checking out.
When you reboot as soon as you are able, open task manager and look at processes see if windows explorer .exe is running full out.
Also how many explorer processes should be there.
Chris.

 

Please do not Hi-Jack this thread candive, you have a good question and yes it is related, but were dealing with aakars question here. So please Post your question in a new thread Thanks

 

Hey guys! I had to steal the laptop again, it's dialing up at a nice 37.2. No, I have not download IE7, still using IE6. I sat down with the laptop and PC side-by-side and went through the connection settings, they are the same.

 

When you restart, Windows will try to reinstall your modem. (if you are logged in as an administrator) TimW is trying to eliminate bad modem drivers as a suspect. This process should ensure you have good copies in use. edit: oops this is on the FIRST page; didn't read the second.

I feel your pain, sir! I've been stuck on a piss poor dial-up connection at home for years now! I'm not sure that I'll be able to solve your problem, but here's somethings that have contributed to OUR poor speeds that you may not have considered:

1. Our ISP moved servers once - they had the numbers we were dialing forwarded to another number, and our modem didn't like that. I'm not sure how you would tell, my girlfriend worked for our ISP, and told me that. The only sign I saw apart from that was abnormal handshaking. (The squealing noises you hear when dialing up)

2. The phone line - I notice you've had the telephone company check your lines. Do you get crystal quality when making phone calls? Is there ANY static on the lines that might interfere with data communications? We've had the phone company come, say they've done work on our lines, and things got WORSE. The easiest way to tell was the clarity of phone conversations.
How about the ground the line runs through? Is it excessively wet? We had problems with THAT, too! Can't remember how we resolved that one.

3. Modem protection - We've had SO many modems fry in thunderstorms. Is yours connected to the phonelines through a surge protector? If not, its possible you've done damage to the modem that hasn't yet rendered it inoperable - is it possible for you to test with another modem?

btw - CPU time consumption will have little to no effect on your connection speed.

 

Okay, I'm at work now. PC still won't dial at a good speed but the laptop is fine. I don't know if the ISP has made any changes but as much as they have spoke with me, I hope they would have looked at that. The telephone lines really didn't have any noise on them in the first place but I wanted to check them out anyway. They said they found a cut line somewhere outside the house and fixed it. I always have had a surge protector for both lines going into the PC. Of course, here lately I have been trying to dial up without them to see if I can get a better speed.

 

Hey Tim. I'm printing the link that you sent right now. I have also downloaded "TCP Optimizer" to a disc and I'll run it tonight on the PC.

 

Okay, I changed the modem initialization string per instructions on expedient and that change moved me up to a whooping 9.6 kbps. I was going to try the Optimizer but I feel completely stupid right now so I better wait.

 

Will this help?

 

I think the best/easiest thing to try now would be to install another good modem to test! Does all this downtime justify the expense (if any) yet?

 

Good afternoon Tim. Okay, I looked at these about three or four weeks ago and if I remember right, they are....

#1: driver for an audio device
#2: Digital camera
#3: Digital camera
#4: Part of Symantec that I am still trying to get rid of

Where I haven't had any speed, I haven't been able to do any updates, or needed downloads or go to Symantec and run the "uninstall" program. Do I sound like I'm whining?

 

One I would echo Mada's statement as a new modem, and preferable an external one is cheap and can always be returned if it doesn't correct the problem.................

No your not whining aakers, it's just hard via this media to solve some problems, that could/can be solved in minutes if we were there.

I would suggest taking a look at this Link by M.A. on your HJT its a powerful tool that can clean up alot, I have used it often with good results. http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=38752

 

I decided that since my home PC dialed up good here at work and also at the local ISP office but not at home that I would swap out modems with a another PC. It dialed up at 28.8 last night after that change. The modem is still good, I guess it just decided after three years that it no longer cared for my phone lines at the house. Thanks to everyone for the help.

 

Hey just glad you got back up to speed aakers (Pun intended)