dial-up slower than molasses

i'm used to dialup and the slowness of it, but why is it getting ever SLOWER with the years? back in 2000 or so, i could putter along surfing and deal with the speed. now it is so slow as to be utter TORTURE. a wiki page, for example, can easily take 23 mins to load!

i run all the AV/AM stuff -- including HiJackThis -- and i check my task mgr often. there is nothing weird running in the background, afaict. and i have way better stats on my machine these days (3G RAM, 0% frag, 100+ G avail for w/e page caching). back with 128k RAM and less than a meg free space, i never had these problems.

it is only in the BROWSERS, afaict. DL apps (orbit, wudates, torrent, etc) all hum along at a consistent, predictable, speed. but if i try to SURF (not at same time, of course), it is just unmanageable. and worse than 23 min page loads is the fact that pages "time out" if not sufficiently fast. for every page i successfully view, i usually have to go through 8 or 9 "refreshes", often needing to cut the URL and paste it to a NEW tab. (yes, there's a point at which tabs don't even respond to a refresh!)

OBVIOUSLY i do what i can when i'm out and about and on WIFI, but this is ridiculous. i'd like to be able to come home and check my email without it being a 3 hour project.

is there some inherent reason i can't surf at a comparable rate to 2000 or so?

i should note that this has plagued me on the last SEVERAL laptops, not just this one. and there is not much difference whether i use IE, Firefox, or Opera -- every browser runs at a similar excruciating crawl. it easily takes me 20-30x as much time to do anything as it would have a decade ago. AT LEAST.

thoughts?

win7, btw. IE10/FF21/O12.15.

 

The only way I can think of to speed up the page loads on dial-up is to turn off the loading of images if you don't need them. They're mostly associated with advertisements anyway.

 

yes, if things were functioning normally to begin with. but i'm talking flat-out TEXT pages here even. it sometimes takes 3-4 mins for the "google" box to show uip.

to me, it looks like something is CAMPED OUT on my connection, using 95% of the already-limited bandwidth. but as i said, neither task mgr nor HJT detects anything.

i occasionally get "long-running script is hanging" or the like errors. is this relevant? i must admit, i really don't understand what scripts DO -- clicking "stop script" or "recover script" doesn't seem to make a bit of diff at all. but it's got me thinking about whether JAVA or FLASH or something is the main culprit here, compared to the carefree dialup of a decade ago.

oh, and btw - PLEASE don't quote my QUESTION in replies! aside from the "what for?" factor, it DOUBLES any load time. took me 18+ mins to read your response, where i might have squeaked by in 10 or 11.....

 

if it were phone line or ISP, it would affect all things equally, no? as i said, program updates and various downloads (i DL podcasts a lot) work just fine. this is definitely a "browser" issue.

i notice, btw, that when i kill off adobe flash in my task mgr, some things improve in firefox for a few secs. but back it comes like 20 secs later.

and that's only for FF -- i don't even see it appear for IE, so i guess it's not part of the problem there. still, IE is slightly worse. if i stick to FF and kill off flash every 10 secs, i can kind of hobble along closer to what it used to be like.

forget photos -- isn't there some sort of "run w/o bells and whistles" option for IE somewhere? i seem to recall something like that. scripts, flash, java, shockwave, it's all kind of a blur to me -- but i get the sense that if i could suppress all of THOSE, i'd be on to something.

i've turned off "play animation" and "play sound" under internet options>>advanced (sticking to IE for the moment here), i'll turn off "display photos" as well now, but i don't think that's the key here. elsewhere, under programs>>manage add-ons i can turn off shockwave, but that's about it. where are the "turn off flash", "...java", etc. toggles, or some master "turn it all off" option?

again, wasn't there some sort of "run IE lite" option from OUTSIDE the browser? i.e. when you first open it?

i recall that back around IE6 or IE7 but i can't seem to find anything now that i need it.

 

In Firefox (I'm running 22) you can go to Tools -> Addons -> Plugins and disable any or all. You can also go to Tools -> Options -> Content and uncheck Load images automatically AND uncheck Enable javascript. Only enable it when you need it.

In IE (I'm running 8) you can go to tools -> Manage Addons -> Toolbars and Extensions. Click on each one individually and choose disable in the bottom right of the window.

I'm almost positive Flash may be part of the problem.

 

If you are used to using the system or another on highspeed Internet, then going home and using Dial-up, your brain is what is causing you to think that the system is running slow.

Now of course, you need to state what is your ISP, who is your phone carrier that you are using, and when was the last time you ever did a Disk cleanup & defrag on the system.

Also if you are going to sites with a lot of heavy graphics elements, or trying to stream from Youtube, etc. which most sites are optimized for 6mbps down connections, you are always going to be in trouble these days with 56k connections, when going online to the Internet.

Suggest checking around your local area for a WISP (Wireless ISP), or telephone company to see if they offer any kind of DSL service, which would be better than 56k dial-up.

 

no, that is not the case. i have enuf experience w dialup to know what the basic range is for normal speed.

ISP = dialinfree, netzero, juno; all similar results
phone carrier = verizon, comcast; similar results

again, aren't those both irrelevant, as per my last post?

disk cleanup/defrag...i dunno...42 mins ago maybe? i do both obsessively since these problems started.

graphic elements?! youtube?! BWAAAAAAHHHHH!!! that'll be the day!

i know from the gitgo not to attempt "streaming" anything. i am talking here about trying to load a GOOGLE BOX...or a page like THIS THREAD....

orbit etc DLs average around 3.5 kps, same as the old days. browser speed, to the extent that i can measure it, is somewhere around 0.1 kps.

anyway, i've disabled all sorts of stuff per previous suggestions; let's see if there's any improvement!

 

If you did all of that, I think it's time you checked for malware. - a lot of malware will take up a lot or most of your bandwidth, even with DSL. You can also check for PUPs like hijackers, spyware etc.

I suggest going through the malware removal thread.
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35407

If you have another PC, you can also check the connection speeds on that, to make sure it is not your line or ISP giving trouble.

 

Your phone carrier and who you are using for Internet does matter. Bad phone line with a lot of noise on the line, can cause link retrains for the modem. Most of these dial-up ISP's have rollover numbers that will go from 56k, to 33.6, to 28.8k at the lowest.

You could be getting placed on one of the slower lines, due to when the system does its initial tests for line quality, it is showing that you are not going to be at the fastest speed, so even connected the ATM in between the modems and you will lower down to the best speed for the connection.

As for the rollover from high to low, it depends on how busy those numbers are, and since they use the above mentioned speeds on those modems, if they are busy, it could be a hit or miss to get the 56k or 33.6k.

Now with some softmodem's, there is a way to force them to stay at the highest speed, but you are better to get a actual hardware modem, since Softmodem's tend to cause more headaches than they should. Always hated when the manufacturers came out with Softmodems, because they are allowing Windows, Mac OS, Linux to dictate how the modem works, not the chipset and firmware built into the modem.

You can still get the US Robotics externals http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/USRobotics-56K-Modem-fax-modem/2131541.aspx You will need a Serial PCI card with a DB-25 connector. There are some others you czn go through the list at CDW.com that are internal http://www.cdw.com/shop/search/Netw...2&key=Modem&MaxRecords=75&SortBy=MostRelevant

I would try another modem to make sure that the modem you have is not going bad, along with checking for malware to make sure you have a clean system. Another item of interest, is making sure that your telephone NID is properly grounded to the ground rod, not a water pipe on the outside of the house, or with a bracket on the meter pan.

L-Com makes the best Surge line protectors for telephone, so if you do not have a good NID with built in lightening protection, you may want to invest in the L-Com protector. It will also help with the noise on your line.

You should also have the telephone provider you use check your line for any faults or even "Bridge Taps", which can cause issues with poor connections even with data, but you really do not notice that stuff, unless you are on DSL, where you can run a line report on the modem.

The Passmark test is probably one of the better out there to check your line conditions http://www.passmark.com/products/modemtst.htm And also to let you know you are talking with some of us that have been around since the days of when Compu-Serve was considered the first Internet provider, and some like myself ran BBS's out of our homes, so we know where you are coming from when you are stating that you are getting frustrated due to network slowdowns.

Things will not get better with Dial-up ISP's, since most of them are degrading their equipment to 33.6 or even as low as 28.8 only, which is why you are not getting the best connection like you used to.

Keep us updated and posted as to what is going on, both with changing out equipment to make sure your modem is not going bad, checking the drivers to make sure they are up to date (grab the ones from the manufacturer of the modem, not off of Windows update), and what the telephone company states about a "Bridge Tap" possibly on the line.

 

If your page loading speed is 'normal' when you are using wifi somewhere else then the problem is almost certainly with your ISP connection.

You could try Safe Mode with Networking just to verify that it's not software slowing you down.

For FireFox try the Add-On FlashBlock it will block all flash but if you want to view it just click the icon.

 

@brownizs: i still don't get it. if it were ANY of the things you're suggesting, i wouldn't be getting the full 3.5M on things like orbit DLs. again, folks, the drag is only showing in BROWSERS.

@madmal: true in theory, but a 4kps drag from flash etc isn't even noticeable when i'm getting 6Mps etc on wifi. on a 3.5kps connection, otoh....

@blujay: i've done all the AV/AM checks, as per my OP. not to say that that's still not possible, but i really can't find anything.

-----
aniwe.......gold star to MDONAH.....i disabled all sorts of stuff by hand (still can't find that master "run IE w/o add-ons" option...), and things were INSTANTLY better! i guess i half-expected this all along, but i've been nervous to try it for fears of mucking up all sorts of other things.

so far the only side effect is that i can't get into my EMAIL. says "cookies are being rejected". hmmm. i didn't toggle anything with the word cookie ANYWHERE, but maybe it's dependent somehow on java or sumpin.

i'll play with it some more. i didn't want to blurt out "that did it!" until i had a couple of days to watch how it goes, but as of this point, i will tentatively say that MDONAH's suggestions seem to have done the trick.

messy buckets!

 

OK, had a couple weeks to play with this -- yes, after disabling everything in both IE and FF, i was INITIALLY shocked at what a diff it made. i could actually GOOGLE stuff again in IE (been like 6 years!). more importantly, there were no "timeout" issues -- if i loaded 15 pages in separate tabs/windows and went off for 2 hours, they'd either be done when i got back or at least still be trying. no more "this page cannot be loaded"s....

but it was short lived. within a day IE was back to its old (new) ways. i checked to see whether maybe those java/flash/etc things had somehow turned themselves back ON, but it does not appear so. so now i'm more confused than ever. was all that just a red herring?

meanwhile, i'm getting back in the habit of using FF. but it's hit or miss -- some days it appears my prayers have been answered -- about 40-50x as fast as IE and lacking that "timeout" issue; other days it's 100% just as bad.

so NOW what?! any further theories?