Dial up connection so slow can't even download windows updates

I built a computer for a friend 2 months ago. I installed windows at my own home and used my highspeed connection for all the critical updates. I hooked his dial up connection as well to my phone line and was receiving 45kbps. When I hooked it up to his phone line he only gets 18kbps and only as high as 28kbps. When he trys to get the critical window updates it freezes at 33 percent when it scans. I ran AVG and its clean and also ran adaware and all it picked up was cookies. He also changed internet provider thinking it would change. Is there any program or somithing else that would increase the speed. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Agree with all the above.


On dial-up I've noticed that Windows Update does pause for a long time @ 33% while scanning a machine. It might act like it's hung, esp compared to broadband speed, but it's probably working.

 

update. My friend had the phone company in (they are also the internet provider) and the guy said he is the last one on the line and that is why his signal is so weak. He checked all the phone lines and said "sorry" nothing we can do until enough people complain about dial up and they bring in dsl. When I tried to update windows it actually freezes. Had to use ctrl, alt , delete to get out of it. I did the updates when I origionally built it from his house and it took 6hrs. The mb conked out and replaced it thats why I did the updates from my own homd the second time. Guess he is shit out of luck!

 

Mine freezes at 33 too. Try giving it a couple of minutes.

 

Yeah, unfortunately, he's been stuck with a bad phone line. His only options are to (a) Wait (b) Move house!.

Not trying to be funny, but as you say, he is out of luck, I'm afraid.

 

Umm, how old is the modem? 28.8 was the max for modems a _long_ time ago? Shot in the dark here.

 

You might try this.

Download DrTCP:

http://www.dslreports.com/front/DRTCP021.exe

Run the program, it will show the current settings of TCP/IP parameters. Write them down.

You can change any variable that you want, click Apply, and reboot the computer, if no good; you can always change to your original values.

Start with:

MaxMTU - DSL =1492 Cable = 1500 DialUp = 576

Tcp Receive - 65392 (This is the varaible to play with!)

Window Scaling - Yes

Time Stamping - No

Selective Acks - Yes

Path MTU Discovery - Yes.

Black Hole - NO

Max Duplicate - 2

TTL - 64

Notice it said above Start with

These settings are not written in "stone" there is variability depending on the computer other setting. So try few setting and measure your Download for each setting.

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Many possibilities lurk with this situation. Could be a wiring issue INSIDE your house as well. Many things can interfere with data transfer. Phone wires running close to electric motors or fluorescent light fixtures for example. Mild shorts within phone jacks,faulty surge supressor that phone line goes thru, or even a phone on the same line itself. If you're persistant, you can track down the problem by elimination. If it's an apartment, you probrably can't do much to mess with it. But if it's a house, you can. I had this same problem myself. What I did was install a brand new jack right near my computer. I meticulously wired it, and ran the new wire DIRECTLY to the terminal block where the outside line comes inside the house(in the basement in my case). I left the wires off, that go to the phone wiring in the house, so the only thing connected to the terminal block, was the new jack. Then I dialed up, and did some downloading. I had a VAST improvement, so then I went on to narrow the problem down. I brought the phones to the computer one by one, and plugged them into the jack on the modem with the little telephone icon next to it. Did some more downloading. Nothing slowed down, so I knew all the phones were good. I then reconnected the other wires for the jacks throughout the house to the terminal block again. Downloads slowed back down. So now I had it narrowed down to the wiring within the house. So from that point, I proceeded to just replace the other 3 phone jacks in the house, and the wiring that went to them. Luckily, all my wiring was accessable, and easy to replace. But anyways, thats pretty much what would be involved to tracing and fixing the problem.
Of course, if the problem ISN'T inside the house, you will have known after you did the first step(directly wired up new jack, leaving other wires off).
Good Luck