trying to get more of the connection speed i'm paying for

Thousand possibilities. If it is cable, 300 is probably peak speeds, because the lines are shared. If it is DSL and you were promised 300, I would call. Keep in mind your assuming that where your downloading from can handle over 100 kbps. For example if everyone here could download from us at 300 kbps, imagine how much bandwidth that would be for 2,500 on the front page and 400 on the forums non-stop. Your ISP might offer a speed test, where you can download a test file from them, I would try that out.

Yeehah, ok, if you have no luck to here, lets try some goodies. Heres a one click install that I rely on and certainly wont hurt:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/TCP_Optimizer_d2104.html

Next you might want to try playing with this:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Dan_Elwells_Broadband_Speed_Test_d4263.html