Boost the speed of your internet connection,
RAM, CPU, modem, cable, DSL, & memory

Everyone is struggling for speedier access, so here are some solutions "You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much bandwidth." --The High Bandwidth Web Page (http://www.specialty.com/hiband) Last month, my online life at home took a radical turn for the better: I finally broke down and had cable modem access installed. Stepping Up My Access I should have done this a long time ago. I live in an area where the local phone system is one step above Dixie cups and string. You may have this problem, too. You went out and bought that 56-K modem, hoping to cruise along the Infobahn with your hair blowing in the wind behind you. Instead, you can't quite shift out of second gear. I was never able to wring more than 28.8 Kbps out of my 56-K modem ... and that was on a good day. There are any number of reasons for this sub-par performance. First of all, the FCC limits modem speed on the telephone network to about 53 K, and that's downstream, from the Internet to you. Upstream, these modems top out at about 33.3 K, and that's under optimum conditions. Also, the history of 56-K modem technology is, well, funky. For a long time, there were two competing standards--X2 (Rockwell Technology) and K56flex (Lucent Technology). Some Internet providers supported one, some supported the other. Last year, a new standard called V.90 was approved by the International Telecommunications Union (http://www.itu.int). Most folks who bought a 56-K modem prior to V.90 have the capability of upgrading to the new standard by downloading new software from each vendor's Web site. See the Official V.90 Web site (http://ww.v90.com), or check out 3Com's 56K Central page (3Com bought out Rockwell-- http://www.3com/56k) or The Official 56K Modem Web site (http://www.k56flex.com) for Lucent-based information. You should find links to applicable V.90 software upgrades for your modem at one of these sites. Another reason is that noisy or "dirty" phone lines can really put a damper on your modem speed. If you regularly hear buzzing or static when you're on the telephone, chances are you won't be able to achieve optimum modem speed. Things like Caller ID, answering machines, and cordless phones add even more line noise. You can try disconnecting these devices one by one to see if the noise diminishes. Alas, this may not help at all if your line noise is caused by nearby power lines, buildings or other environmental factors ... and/or if you're more than about 3-1/2 miles from the telephone company's central office ... and/or there is more than one analog-to-digital conversion point along the path to your Internet provider. You can always call the phone company and whine, but that tends to be a waste of energy, since they're basically obliged only to provide you with a dial tone. Bummer. If you live in the U.S., you can try 3Com's LineTest to see if your phone line has any hope of supporting anything approaching 56 K. Find the instructions at http://www.3com.com/56k/need4_56k/linetest.html. Meanwhile, the mainstream computer press regularly offers any number of hardware and software tweaks to improve your modem speed. Eventually, however, if you're a heavy home Internet user, you're bound to start thinking about higher bandwidth alternatives, especially if you've been spoiled by that fat-pipe connection at work. The good news is, prices are dropping and geographic availability is climbing. The bad news is, well, prices may not have dropped low enough where you live, if indeed you are able to find a higher bandwidth provider at all. For most home users, cable modem service will be the lowest-cost, lowest-hassle solution. You may not be as fortunate as I am, however. In. our area, we actually have a choice between two competing cable TV providers--both of whom also offer cable modem service: Time-Warner's Roadrunner (http://www.rr.com/rdrun) and GTE's WorldWind (http://www.gtecablemodem.com). Before making a choice, I hopped over to DejaNews...er, Deja.com ("To better reflect all the features that the site now offers, we've changed our name to the simpler Deja.com ... Building on our traditional base of discussion forums, we've added new features to extend and enhance the people-driven elements of the site, and improved the navigation." Yada yada yada-- http://www.deja.com). At any rate, this is still where you go to search the Usenet newsgroups. In this case, I was interested in comp.dcom.modems.cable, where the technology and service providers are raked over the coals on a daily basis. Ultimately, since Time-Warner's been in the cable modem business a lot longer around here, and since I was already a Time-Warner cable TV subscriber, I opted for Roadrunner. Around here, it costs $39.95 a month if you are also one of the company's cable TV customers. (The GTE service is comparable.) I'm sure some of you are thinking, "Hoo boy! Forty bucks a month for Internet access?" Consider, however, that the cable company is now your ISP, so you can drop your current ISP (average cost: $19.95 per month). You can also dispense with your second (and third, in our case) phone line. When you have cable modem access, your computer is always "on the Internet." The modem stays on all the time; you log in and out as you please, or you can just leave your PC connected 24/7. Your phone line is always free and clear (unless a teenager lives with you). So $39.95 all of a sudden doesn't look so bad. Standard installation charge is a one-time $99, but special deals abound. I paid $45 (and a month later, saw an ad touting free installation). My installation was a two-man job. A contract PC tech came to the house to install and configure a network card and the Roadrunner software. While he was still here, the cable guy showed up, bringing the modem. Essentially, his job was to split the cable connection to my house into two parts--one for the TV and one for the PC. He ran new cable, hooked up the modem, climbed a nearby utility pole to tweak something, and then (wowie kazowie!) I was online! It worked great right from the start. I've had it for a couple months now, and I have yet to see any downtime. How fast is it? See Figure 1 for a comparison. Your mileage, of course, may vary. Some caveats: * Your PC may not be able to keep up with the cable modem, which sends data to your computer via an Ethernet card. Although the cable modem may be receiving data at 10 Mbps (megabits per second) or higher, your PC can only read data at the rate your network interface card can handle. * The cable network may not always be as fast as the cable modern. This is no different than with a regular dial-up Internet provider; the Net is only as fast as the slowest server. Some cable providers cache, or store, popular Web sites on their own servers for faster delivery to their subscribers. * The more people tapping into your local cable network node, the slower your service will be. This is just like the LAN at work, when some yutz decides to e-mail a 10-MB PowerPoint presentation to a long list of different people. Cable modem access is still going to be a whole lot faster than standard dial-up, but if everyone in your neighborhood is a fellow subscriber, and they all like to hop online at the same time ... well, that's life. * "Upstream" speed--from your PC to the cable operator--is generally much slower than "downstream" speed, inasmuch as cable networks were originally designed to transmit data one way only: to you rather than from you. But virtually all home users are sucking megabits down from the Net rather than pushing megabits the other way (and cable providers will definitely yank your connection should you try and run a Web server off of it). Also, larger companies with the bucks to upgrade their networks to fiber optic, etc. are reducing the impact of this problem in today's competitive environment. Can you even get cable modem access where you live? On Time-Warner's Roadrunner home page (http://www.rr.com/rdrun), you can type your ZIP code in a little search form and find out if the service is offered in your area. On the GTE WorldWind page (http://www.gtecablemodem.com), you can click on an Availability link to see if your town is properly wired. Keep in mind that this is an industry in constant flux; ongoing mergers and acquisitions make it very difficult to keep up with who is offering what where. Most larger cable providers offer Internet access, either directly or through a partner: @Home Network (http://www.home.net), Cable Vision (http://www.cablevision.com/cvhome/frame/finet.htm), ComCast (http://www.comcastonline.com), Cox @Home (http://www. cox.com/CoxatHome),  MediaOne Express (http://www.mediaoneexpress.com), Rogers @Home (http://rogers.home.com), TCI (http://www.tci.net). Other Possibilities Are there alternatives to cable modem service for the home user? At one time, it was easy to say, "It depends on what your local telephone company has to offer." But in some locales, competition is creeping in at the local level, and there's no telling who might be offering what in your neck of the woods. The two main high-speed Internet technologies of interest to home users and small businesses are ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Lines) and ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network). ADSL works via your existing phone line, using filters to split it into different channels. ISDN requires separate, special lines. Since cable modem service is not generally available to commercial entities, these may be the most reasonable solutions for the small (non-home-based) business that needs higher bandwidth but can't afford a T-1 connection, for example. Prices tend to be all over the map--from competitive with cable modem service to exorbitant. I have no personal experience with these services, but I do know o f a few good Net resources: * Dan Kegel's ISDN Page (http://alumni.caltech.edu/dank/isdn/index.html) * ISDN InfoCentre (http://www.isdn.ocn.com) * Dan Kegel's ADSL Page (http://alumni.caltech.edu/dank/isdn/adsl.html) * ASDL Forum's FAQ (http://www.adsl.com/faq.html) Finally, for one woman's "truly bizarre experience with Comcast@home," you must read "Get a Cable Modem ... Go to Jail" (http://members.home.net/maycomp/cablemodem.htm). It's still the Wild, Wild West out there... Some Interesting Stuff I've been spring cleaning here at the old PC--tossing out stale URLs and adding new ones. Here are some intriguing sites that have crossed my radar screen within the past couple of weeks: * Daily Diffs (http://www.dailydiffs.com): "Daily Diffs monitors changes on tens of thousands of pages, all hand-selected for quality and usefulness. Every day, we publish brand new changes and history for over 4,000 dynamic pages." This service subdivides changes under some useful subject headings, including computers and programming, environment, etc. * Euroguide (http://www.euroguide.org): Kind of like an EU-oriented Yahoo!, Euroguide will help you find your way through the maze of European information on the Internet. * Orientation (http://eeu.orientation.com): For Europe and beyond, this site carries a collection of links to regional search engines and directories for Asia, Africa, Central & Eastern Europe, Latin American & the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Oceania. * Fishsearch (http://fishsearch.com): Fishing is something most people either like or hate. Even if you're not an enthusiast, you've probably got friends, relatives, coworkers, or customers who are. Fishsearch provides a searchable subject index about fishing--fishing tools, fishing trips, taxidermy, etc. * Library Juice (http://libr.org/Juice): "Library Juice is a current awareness service for library and information science students, librarians, and other interested people. It includes announcements, many web resources, calls for papers, and news items. Much of the material has a social-responsibilities or intellectual freedom focus."                  Comparative transfer rates for a 10-MB file  MODEM SPEED/TYPE          TRANSFER TIME 9.6-Kbps telephone modem  2.3 hours  14.4-Kbps telephone modem 1.5 hours 28.8-Kbps telephone modem 46 minutes 56-Kbps telephone modem   24 minutes l28-Kbps ISDN modem       10 minutes 1.54-Mbps T-1 connection  52 seconds 4-Mbps cable modem        20 seconds lO-Mbps cable modem        8 seconds  You have a nice shiny modem, top of the range computer and the fastest ISP on the planet, but your connection speed is still in single figures. It's the Net's fault, right? Not necessarily. Roger Gann tells you how you can get the most out of your modem Show me someone who says their Internet connection is plenty fast enough, and I'll show you someone who's being economical with the truth. It doesn't matter how fast your Net connection is, it's rarely ever fast enough. Some lucky souls now have always-on broadband connections, but the vast majority of us, myself included, still have to make do with ye olde dial-up. While you'll never get a V.90 modem to break the sound barrier, there are a number of steps you can take to boost the speed of your Internet connection. Your Net connection speed is determined by a number of factors, and how well they all work together: * Computer-its hardware and memory capacity determine how fast it will be. * Modem speed -- cable modems through to slow modems. * Phone lines--the weather, believe it or not, is a factor. * Service provider-the number of people using your ISP and the speed of the IS P's connection to the Net. * The Internet backbone -- congestion or technical problems can ruin your online experience. * Web sites you're connecting to-they're subject to the same factors as you. You don't have much influence over the last three, but you can do something about the first three. Usually, the only way to speed up your computer involves spending hard-earned cash. But the good news is that the second and third items can be dealt with at a cost of precisely nothing. If you're looking to tweak your connection to the absolute maximum, you have to be willing to invest the time necessary to test, then change settings, then retest, then change settings, and so on. Luckily, there are tools available to make the process easier. You might not have any control over the performance of the internet beyond your phone socket, but it's possible to use simple diagnostics to track down where your Internet problem lies. Have you ever logged on to the Internet and were not able logo to a particular site? Or maybe it was unusually slow that day? Windows 9X comes with two small but useful utilities, Ping and Tracert, that can help you gauge the quality of the connection between your computer and the Web site that you are trying to reach on the Internet. Both Ping and Tracert, which is short for TraceRoute, show you how fast or slow the Internet is between your computer and the computer you're trying to reach. Ping will tell you if the computer you're trying to contact is responding, and Tracert will find exactly where the problem is if you can't get to that Web page you need. Both utilities are installed, by default in the \Windows \Command folder, These are DOS utilities and so have to be run from a Command prompt- the easiest way to do this is to click Start, Programs then MS-DOS Prompt. To explain what a Ping is, let's use an analogy. Suppose you called one of your friends on the phone. If your friend stays silent for some time, you might ask, "Are you there?" and your friend should reply with, "I'm here!". That's a human-to-human ping. The Ping command is similar for two computers. All Ping does is ask the computer at the other end to respond. Ping pang In the screenshot above, I've Pinged the BBC Web site (C:\[greater than] ping www.bbc.co.uk) and it has responded to my request in about 100ms, or one tenth of a second. Now for a little explanation of what you see. The bytes mean how much data was received back from this particular server, The time means how long it took to reach you. And the TTL (Time To Live) means how long the data that you sent is kept in the memory of the computer that you're trying to reach. This also is a crude DNS test since it shows that the URL has been successfully resolved into an P address, 212.58.240.32. Note that not all sites respond to Pings - Microsoft and MSN don't for example, so the mere fact that a site doesn't return a Ping and you get a 'Request timed out' response, doesn't mean there's a fault. So be sure to try more than one site. But say you got a 'Request timed out' on a site that should return a Ping- the next thing you should do is run a Tracert. This'll tell you where the problem lies by tracing the route it takes to get to the computer you're trying to reach. This utility tells you each router your packets cross when trying to reach your destination. In my example (see screenshot above), you can see there were 12 hops between me and the BBC site. Even thought was in London, my connection went via New York. The first number is the 'hop' or router number the route takes. The next three numbers are the round-trip times in milliseconds for three tries to reach that router. The last column is the hostname of the responding system. The most common cause of disconnects is tine noise, pure and simple--you can use the phone engineer's self-test number 17070 to perform a 'quiet line' test to see how your line fairs. The second cause is call waiting -- the notification 'beep' confuses the modem. If you only have one phone line, disable it with #43# before dialling out. To check if it's 'on', key in *#43#. Another cause of disconnects are idle timeouts- settings that automatically drop the line after a specified period of inactivity. Check these by looking at the Connection tab of your modem properties. The default is that this Feature is disabled, No gain, no pain Lots of people use a long extension lead from the phone socket to the modem, and these can be responsible for far more speed loss than most people realise. As a rule, try to keep all phone leads as short as possible. Having loads of extension sockets with phone devices plugged into them can cause problems as well. Principally, it can overload the Ring Equivalence Number [REN] of your system--you typically should have a total REN of 4 If you exceed this value, it'll mean that one or more of them won't ring if someone phones you, but it also affects the connection speed the modem can establish. Line gain is another issue. Each device will consume power from the line and might not leave enough for the modem. Testing this out is easy enough -- detach every extra device and see if it makes a difference. If it does, reattach them one by one to see which one is the culprit. Don't forget that if you have a digital set top box, it has to be plugged into your phone line, and this could affect your modem's performance. Sometimes, if you have a bad line, asking BT to up the line gain can help. Normally, BT applies Automatic Gain Control (AGC) to each line, so when you make the request this feature is normally switched off. AGC is OK for voice calls but it's not necessarily optimal for modems as the modem usually controls its own gain and the two can conflict. Sometimes decreasing the gain can improve performance. If you're close to the exchange, you don't need much gain, but if you live some way away, your line needs more juice. Tweaking your settings Your computer settings could be getting in the way of a speedy connection. All they need is a Little tweak and you could be zooming along Open up the Control Panel and double-click the Network icon. Under the Configuration tab, select the Dial-Up Adapter and click Properties. Go to the Bindings tab and uncheck all boxes except the TCP/IP box. Select the Advanced tab and set Enable Point To Point IP to No (unless you routinely accept incoming calls using your modem). Set IP Packet Size to Large, and Record Log File to No. If you mostly use the Internet to download files and view Web pages, enable IPX Header Compression, otherwise disable it. Next, select the TCP/IP protocol (if you have multiple copies of the protocol installed, use the one for your dial-up adapter/modem) and click Properties. Select the WINS Configuration tab, and choose the Disable WINS Resolution option. Click the DNS configuration tab, and select Disable ONS. Go to the Bindings tab. Uncheck all the boxes. Certain ISPs might give you specific instructions for your network settings. If your ISP is one of these, you should follow their instructions. Next, open your dial-up networking connectoid and click on the Server Types tab. Make sure that TCP/IP is enabled (and compression if you want Web pages to load faster, and don't care about Ping), and everything else is disabled (unless you have specific instructions from your ISP otherwise). This will help you connect to your ISP faster. Tweaking your settings There are other low-Level TCP/IP settings you can tweak. You can do this manually, but it involves getting your hands dirty with the Registry, so it's best to let some software do it for you. There are several tools you could use, but two stand out, iSpeed (www.hms.com) and EasyMTU http://easymtu.tripod.com). Both are freeware. These programs optimise some esoteric TCP/IP settings such as MTU, MSS and RWIN. For example, MTU is the Maximum Transmittable Unit, and this setting is imperative for optimal packet transmission. If it's set correctly, it will stop information from being broken up during transfer. Windows 95 always sets this too high for modem use, as  it assumes you're connected to a LAN. Windows 98 should set the correct MTU size automatically but it can get it wrong. Note that iSpeed is really meant for Windows95--Windows 98 has a new feature called MTU Auto Discover, that automatically determines the optimal MTU (and will derive all of the other settings from that) on connect. Nevertheless, you should still make sure that P Packet Size is set to Large, as laid out in Step 1. This is because if you set the IP Packet size to something smaller than Large (Auto assumes 576, even though it shouldn't), you limit your maximum MTU because Windows assumes the setting is as high as it needs to go. Another reason is that if you set the settings manually (through the Registry, as iSpeed does), you lose Windows 98's ability to dynamically choose the optimal settings on connect as well -- and servers have been known to change these settings frequently to handle more traffic. If you want to determine your MTU manually, here's how. Open a DOS prompt and enter this command: ping -f-1 [trial MTU number] www.[your-isp].com. Start with a value of 548 and go up or down depending on the message (if it tells you that the packets are being fragmented, you need to go down -- you want the highest setting that doesn't cause packet fragmentation). To derive your MTU from the ping data, add 28 to the highest number that worked (packet size+28). Then, to derive your MSS from your MTU number, take MTU-40 and insert that value for MSS. Check your Corn Port settings. First, change your FIFO settings. To do this, right click on My Computer. Go to Properties. Then click the Device Manager tab at the top. Locate Modem, double click on it, then double click your modem. Click the Connection tab and click on the Port Settings button. Now slide the FIFO buffers all the way right. If things don't work correctly when you try to use your modem, you should change this back. Go back a level and click on the Advanced button. Make sure your modem is using hardware flow control, use compression and error control for best results. Telephone line tweaks Sometimes when you request a second line from BT, rather than installing a totally new second line from the exchange or local cabinet, their engineers attach a special box outside your house that allows two telephone lines to share the same cables back to the exchange. This uses a technique known as DACS-2 -- Digital Access Carrier Service. DACS is highly unsuitable for use with V.90 (and many other) modems. This is because it effectively multiplexes two phone lines down a single line. This is perfectly adequate for voice and fax communications (which BT is obliged to support) but less than optimal for modem operation, especially with V.90 modems, which rely on a direct link to the exchange, unadulterated by any further digital to analogue conversions. Sadly DACS introduces two extra digital to analogue conversions into the path from your ISP to your location. If you have DACS, at best you'll be able to get 33.6kbps out of your V.90 modem. If you order an extra line for your modem from BT, you should specify that the line is for use with a modem, that you do not want it to be DACS-ed over your existing line, and that you want a Direct Exchange Line. Tweaking your settings Go back to Device Manager. Double click the Ports section, and then double click the Communication Port your modem uses. It will bring up a similar Properties section. Click the Port Settings tab. Change Bits Per Second to 115,200 or higher. Change Flow Control to 'Hardware'. Then click the Advanced... button and it will bring up the same FIFO menu as above. Slide the bar all the way to the right again. Upgrade your modem Many people bought 56k modems when they first came out several years ago as X2 or K56Flex, without considering the update to a standard that was bound to come. Why do it? Well, for a time most ISPs supported V.90 plus its earlier incarnations. However, that transitional period is now over, and many ISPs are dropping support for the older standards. The bottom line is this -- if you try to access a V.90-only ISP with a K56Flex or X2 modem, the fastest connect speed you'll get is 33.6kbps. Luckily, most modems are 'flash' upgradeable to the V.90 standard. It's a simple process that takes less than 15 minutes. Check out the V.90 Upgrade FAQ at www.56K.com. This tells you all you need to know about the procedure. Make sure your ISP supports V.90 as well. All you must do is flash your modem's BIOS with the V.90 protocol and (for best results) update your modem's INF 'drivers'. After increasing the amount of RAM on a wide range of Windows 2000 PCs, ZD Labs analyzed the performance gains using the following Ziff-Davis benchmarks: Business Winstone 99, for business productivity applications; Content Creation Winstone 2000, for multimedia content creation applications; and i-Bench 1.1, for testing Internet client performance. The tests measured system performance for machines running Windows 2000 with various levels of installed RAM up to 256 MB. This study was the third in a series that began testing systems using Windows 95/98 and Windows NT 4.0. Highlights of findings Some of the study's findings were dramatic. For instance: -- Performance on Business Winstone increased an average of 17 percent when moving from 64 MB to 128 MB of RAM; -- Performance on Content Creation Winstone increased an average of 38 percent when moving from 64 MB of RAM to 128 MB of RAM; -- When loading memory-intensive complex Web pages, performance on i-Bench 1.1  increased by 14 percent when moving from 64 MB of RAM to 96 MB of RAM. Study Summary The minimum requirement of 64 MB of RAM currently recommended by Microsoft will run these types of business applications; however, the program may function at a slower pace. Business users may find themselves wasting valuable productivity and time waiting for the program to respond. The levels of RAM suggested by the Council on Computer Power will ensure that business software running with Windows 2000 is efficient, responsive and expedient. Based on the ZD Labs findings, the Council recommends the following optimal levels of RAM for systems running Windows 2000 using these types of programs:   BENCHMARK                            COUNCIL RECOMMENDATION ------------------------------------------------------------ Business Winstone                     128 MB(a) for optimal Targeted for typical business         performance applications, such as Microsoft, Corel and Lotus suites.  CC Winstone                           256 MB for optimal Targeted to multi-media content       performance creators such as Adobe Photoshop 5.0, Adobe Premiere 5.1, Macromedia Director 7.0, Macromedia DreamWeaver 2.0, Netscape Navigator 4.6, and  Sonic Foundry Sound Forge 4.5 i-Bench                               128 MB(a) for optimal Targeted for Internet browsing and    performance Web-based client computing using Netscape and Microsoft browsers.   (a) In the case of business productivity applications and Internet performance, the study actually recommends 96 MB of RAM for optimal performance. However, because new computer systems are frequently not available with 96 MB, the study suggests that choosing one with 128 MB, as opposed to 64 MB, will improve performance significantly.