Installing Broadband

Not sure whether to post this in Software or Hardware But as I am more worried about the software side. Here goes. Tomorrow, I am to help a lady install broadband on her PC. (For Aussies, she is sticking with Bigpond, via the copper phone line). Is there anything in particular I should do/watch out for? How can I ensure she gets the best speed out of her connection? Any tips/hints? Don't know why she needs broadband, as all she does (at present), (99%) is send emails, but that is her choice. Bazza

 

For the broadband they are optimizer for poeple playing game on-line but if she only getting her e-mail is important then do nothing just check her speed
after install what kind off speed she is getting ??? 3 5 8 megs/s

When your are finish tell her now you will get your e-mail realy realy realy fast

Faster then a speeding bullet....

 

In 5 hours time, the battle begins. Bazza
PS: May try and talk her into VOIP, as we have a mutual friend in West Africa. Baz
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she can test her speed here:

http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/

 

Thanks for the link, MellowMan. 4 hours to go. Bazza

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Thanks Halo. Will check it out. Have been on the Net since 3am. Couldn't get back to sleep. It is now 5.19am, despite what time the MG clock says it is. Going to logoff soon. Bazza

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Thanks again, Halo. One last thing, I know lots of Broadband users leave their PC on all the time, connected to Broadband.
WHY?
Goes against everything I've ever practiced on computers since I first started in early 1980's.
I know I've gotta move into the 21st century but............
If you don't mind the connection fee, why leave it on all the time?
We (in FNQ), are coming into the cyclone (hurricane) season soon (Oct-April, in theory).
Don't like that idea with storms, blackouts, brownouts, lightning strikes possible. Bazza
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Thanks again, Halo. We are going to have to stop meeting like this.
I am going to recommend to the lady to shut it down, and unplug from wall socket (all leads) when not in use. One of the suburbs here, had phones blasted off walls due to type of rocks, in their area, and a lightning strike. Bazza
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If it's that bad, get her to invest in a surge protector.

I don't leave mine on all the time, and if I know I'm going to use it in a few hours, I just leave it on standby.

 

I have been switching my computer every night without fail for years and never had a problem..It is safe and less costly to switch the comp each night before bed.

 

The only issue I see is the electricity bill. I keep my computers on all the time. The only thing I turn off is the monitor (during the summer only / during the winter I keep it on).

When I use to live in VA, my 2nd floor bedroom was the warmest, since I had 3 computers and 3 monitors up and running. There was a nice heat zone there. Which is why I still like CRTs.

 

Thanks folks, for all the replies and suggestions. Lady family friend is only a very light user, and then only mainly to answer emails. We finally got Broadband installed. She had dramas with space taken up on her ISP allocation, by emails, on dialup. They allowed 20mb, I think. Bigpond sent her a warning, or 2, at 70% used, and then just stopped all inward and outward emails. No further warnings, like 80%, 90% ( we are going to stop emails, etc.,----------- just stopped them).
Took a while to clear up the dialup side of it.

We then installed the Bigpond Broadband kit, with various dramas, including a "dodgy" CD, that gave spurious errors. Must admit BigPond Broadband tech support was excellent.

Anyhow she is now running Broadband and sending emails, under her new email name.

I was unable to fully test out the speed, but the latest Zone Alarm (6.0.667) 9mbyte file, downloaded, at an average speed, of 177 Kb/s.
Dialup, by comparison, is usually around 4-5Kb/s. So a substantial increase in speed.
35-40 times faster.
I need to spend a couple of hours, on her PC, to resolve other problems (slow startup, etc) and tweak her Broadband using speedtest links posted earlier, etc. Bazza
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Thanks, Halo. I was really impressed with the speed of download (after dialup, of course). Will report back later on her Bigpond Broadband payment plan (for any interested Aussies), brand and model of external modem ( I know it is on Ethernet, though, yellow cable, not USB), etc.

It is as slow as all getup on booting up. Need to install (your recommended) Process Explorer and ask MG for advice about some running processes. Later though. Bazza

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Spent a couple of hours on her PC, yesterday. Removed 9,501 files of crap. Then did an XP defrag. Took ages. Must get an alternative XP defragger. The M$ default one is not that good, IMHO.
Installed SlickRun and built up a list of "MagicWords" to help her out. Saves her having to navigate through menus.
Cleared Prefetch (probably had never been done before).

Haven't installed EVEREST yet, but some specs as follows. From decal on side of box.
XP Home with SP2, 256mb PC2100 DDR Ram (1 stick I think)
Compaq Presario 2200+ (?) with AMD Athlon 1.8 gig
40 gig hard drive
External Speedtouch Modem Model 536, Dual Ethernet/USB.
Bigpond (Aussie) Broadband connection.

Haven't had the opportunity to really investigate why it takes so long to bootup, and shutdown, as yet. Next "to do" task.

Will try and get her to fit another 256mb of RAM. It is still under warranty, so will probably have to go back to the original supplier, so as not to void her warranty. She'll pay extra, but that can't be helped.
The battle continues. Any advice welcome on the next steps we should carry out.

What about compressing old files? The PC was used initially by her ex, and has lots of his stuff on it. He will probably use it again, at a later stage. He is working in West Africa, at present. Bazza

 

If she is using a mail client like outlookexpress or thunderbird, it should pull your email off the server, and prevent her from running into this problem of running out of space on the server side.

 

Thanks for the latest replies. She does use Outlook Express.
Hard drive space is not a problem. I'd like to delete/backup old programs that the "ex" put on, but that is probably not an option, at present.

She tells me that the PC used to be fast, when new, but is now slow.
Next session I will install EVEREST, Process Explorer, Starter, PestPatrol, AdAware, Spybot S & D, Cleanup! and EmpTemp, and probably Diskkeeper Lite, and see what they bring forth.
I'll get full specs and try and talk her into an extra 256mb of RAM. She usually will take my advice, so that extra RAM will help, I know. Bye for now. Bazza

 

She had dramas with space taken up on her ISP allocation, by emails, on dialup. They allowed 20mb, I think. Bigpond sent her a warning, or 2, at 70% used, and then just stopped all inward and outward emails. No further warnings, like 80%, 90% ( we are going to stop emails, etc.,----------- just stopped them).



So is this still an issue, or has this been resolved?

 

Thanks Colemanguy, the issue has been resolved. We got rid of a lot of old emails before we switched to Broadband. I couldn't see what took up all the space, anyhow, on her dialup OE.
Think it must have been attachments, although those I checked were not that big. As I stated earlier, she is not a heavy user and doesn't even receive a lot of emails. Bazza
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