[Guide] Optimizing your 56k connection with XP!

[Borbus]

I think my connection is now slightly better, although it might jsut be a psychological thing.

I tried downloading WMP10 and the download started at 150kb/s (!) but then slowly went down and stayed consistent at about 15kB/s. But thats impossible i'm sure, I dont know what the hell was going on there.

UT2004 online, I got about 250ms which is not that bad considering I used ot get about 350 nad I actually managed to rack up a score of 6 kills which is a lot for me online and I got killed 15 times.

For me I think it worked, thanks Paschendale! (Y)

[OptiPlex]

If this is counted as trolling please to snip this post!

But  Users can use a service called OnSpeed

http://www.onspeed.com/index.php Not as fast as broadband but o well. If anyone doesnt like this thread get a mod to sni:):)

584803389[/snapback]

That's probably a web compression program which won't work on any game of any sort. I think.

[Digitalfox]

Thank God, now i am in ADSL...

But good guide... :D

[BananaMan]

I got a better guide, Best way to optimise your 56K Modem is to ring the nearest Broadband Supplier. If you are still on 56K no guide is going to save you. Suck it up and get Broadband! - And I know I'm going to be quoted and flamed with such stuff as "Some people cant afford broadband!" and to you people I say "Ner Ner Ner Ner Ner"

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Stop trolling, some people can't get broadband, like myself. No cable or ADSL available due to inferior telephony infrastructure in our area, no Wireless because of surrounding terrain blocking the signal and no Satellite because it costs $1000+ for the installation alone with a 1GB cap on downloads.

Great guide, I'll give it a try when I get home. Any speed increase however marginal is welcome, especially when gaming.

[Paschendale]

My modem is an Ambient Creatix V.90 HAM. It always connects at 31.2Kbp. But my other software modem that I used to use would connect at 46.6Kbs.

However using online tests seems to show my Creatix running at around 43Kbp. :s

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Hmm, my old modem used to do a similar thing, where it would report a false connection speed. I fixed it by updating my modem drivers. How old are your current drivers? Anything newer available? If there are, this may help with the speed, too.

Tried your new init setting and my external modem refused to dial.

As for the internal modem still no success. I checked my line and there is no noise ATM

As far for the ISP they dont do anything on customer request......not that good support

The connect speed is varying because during peak time like in evening the connect speed is low and in night its high.

any other ideas? :)

584803277[/snapback]

Hey again archish,

I think you may benefit from forcing your modem to connect using the v34 protocol: AT&F&C1&D2+MS=v34

This will mean that will have a maximum connect speed of v34, however the connection should be much more stable and shouldn't retrain. If this doesn't help, let me know and I'll get back to you with some more things you can experiment with..

For me I think it worked, thanks Paschendale! (Y)

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No problem, Mr Marley. Thank YOU for the music!

[Chode]

I got a better guide, Best way to optimise your 56K Modem is to ring the nearest Broadband Supplier. If you are still on 56K no guide is going to save you. Suck it up and get Broadband! - And I know I'm going to be quoted and flamed with such stuff as "Some people cant afford broadband!" and to you people I say "Ner Ner Ner Ner Ner"

584792387[/snapback]

You haven't been here long, so I'll cut you a break.

Trolling is not welcome here

Been using 56K since I ever used the internet, and I think my post count talks for itself. I have absolutely no reason to update to broadband, as I do everything I need on dialup without hassle.

Also, before trolling with such arrogant comments, spend some time in Rural Australia. Then try shooting your mouth off about how great broadband is.

[Dean W]

I remember the good olld 56k modems lol....

[gazebee_]

thanks for the Guide! And welcome to Neowin

[OptiPlex]

Stop trolling, some people can't get broadband, like myself. No cable or ADSL available due to inferior telephony infrastructure in our area, no Wireless because of surrounding terrain blocking the signal and no Satellite because it costs $1000+ for the installation alone with a 1GB cap on downloads.

Great guide, I'll give it a try when I get home. Any speed increase however marginal is welcome, especially when gaming.

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Ignore him, he trolls in every post. Why don't you go look in threads/news posts that are controversial, ie. Intel vs AMD, Dell vs DIY, IE vs FF ... his trolling is endless.

[war]

Yeap I tried and modem would not dial when I tried the string. Its a intel modem.

[riahc3]

on ADSL now but i would have tried this if i was on 56K...

the best about 56K is when you did something at school you could just dial up, connect, and no calls about you starting a riot or something similar ever came in :D

ahh the good old days......

BTW anyone that says that ADSL is too expensive is because they watch too much TV hehe go online and look at some stuff. Youll be impressed at the offers.

And for those that ADSL is not in your area, electrical broadband is coming soon so that shouldnt be a problem.

[Munnday]

LOL, I've done that my fair share of times, lol.

Good quide, seems to be working quite well for me with speeds increasing a bit - and it's also taking less time to dial up which is a plus

[Paradoxcydal]

haha rock on!

56k power! i still think back about those days :) i was the bomb, my friend had a 33k6 haha :) dsl now though.. also a good thing

but i just love the 56K like i love my old Atari 2600 some things will never die :D

[uniacidz]

at&fx3&c1&d2&k3s10=255

Try this.

[Dashel]

Correct me if I am wrong but I fail to see how this 'tweak' can overcome basic connect/retrain speeds. In your case it may be a hair better since you already connect at 52000. You can't magically make a dial up connection faster if you have bad lines or a crappy (win)modem. I guess I'm one of the 'old' guard that you refer to but from my experience I'm quite skeptical.

[AbsoLut]

I did your guide and it made my ping go from 180's in game to 230's.. Any ideal why? I'm running

AMD Athlon 2.16 ghz

XP home Service Pack 1

768MB DDR SDRam

160 gb HD

Radeon 9200

My modem is a Lucent/Agere winmodem with all the recent drivers and it's connecting at 49.2 kbps. Any help would be appreciated.

[Paschendale]

Correct me if I am wrong but I fail to see how this 'tweak' can overcome basic connect/retrain speeds.  In your case it may be a hair better since you already connect at 52000.  You can't magically make a dial up connection faster if you have bad lines or a crappy (win)modem.  I guess I'm one of the 'old' guard that you refer to but from my experience I'm quite skeptical.

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Yes, I realise that some people are victims of noisy phone lines and while there is little hope there, the Cablenut tweaks and init strings *may* just help to improve stability/optimise packet transfer, even if its marginal. I wouldn't be closed-minded towards giving the guide a shot even if you're on bad lines, because a few of my CS buddies who play from rural areas in Australia have had luck when I referred them to this guide.

Also, I'm essentially using a "crappy" winmodem as you dub it, but as you can see I've managed to get ~100ms pings and a very solid connection through these methods. My point is, it's worth it to give the guide a go even if you're skeptical of the results.

I did your guide and it made my ping go from 180's in game to 230's.. Any ideal why? I'm running

AMD Athlon 2.16 ghz

XP home Service Pack 1

768MB DDR SDRam

160 gb HD

Radeon 9200

My modem is a Lucent/Agere winmodem with all the recent drivers and it's connecting at 49.2 kbps.  Any help would be appreciated.

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Hmm, it's quite hard to say what could be causing this as there are quite a few factors. First, when you did the before and after ping comparison, were you connected to the same server at both times and were there the same number of people on? I ask because you could have possibly connected to a server that is further away or more populous, causing an increase in latency.

If that's not it, you may wish to try playing around with the compression modem values that you initially changed and trying to see what benefits you more - hardware compression or software compression. I'd suggest leaving the Cablenut values and init string as I suggested, though. You see it's kinda subjective - what works well for me may be a decrease in performance for you. Hopefully playing around with the compression settings helps you out, but if it does not, get back to me. :)

[AbsoLut]

It was the same server, same ammount of people. I think it may of been 1 less person when i got the higher latency. How would I go about changing the compression from hardware to software or vice versa? I'll look around and see if I can find them :o

Oh yea, while i'm thinking about it, I took out the init strings and my ping dropped back to normal but then i noticed that my connection icon was freezing out at times.. It done this before also but now i notice it alot.

[ForumWhore]

WARNING! l followed the advice in this guide and my internet connection slowed to a crawl.

...  and in the Network Components section, uninstall QoS if it is there and make sure only TCP/IP is checked

And what you are not told here is that if you uninstall QoS you FTP client will no longer work!

This guide has lost me three days of work trying to sort out why l could no longer use FTP!

:angry:

[emo]

the best guide to optimize 56k is to get rid of it and get cable or dsl.

[vanmidy]

D-Link DFM-562IS HSFi PCI Modem, does anybody has a good init string for this... thanks in advance

[BigKush]

Nice guide,

I have an internal 56k modem, with probably the most perfect line conditions possible. I connect every single time at 56.6kbps, which is a correct readout, because on a reasonably good server I can get steady d/l speeds of 6 and even 7KB/s (The absolute maximum possible download speed for a 56k modem) So until I get a 2Mbit/s Broadband connection (Yes I know, New Zealand is behind in the broadband race, we're still using copper wire :rolleyes: ) I'm happy with my little beast of a modem. :pinch:

DigitallyInsane^

-Surge05 Resurrected-

[Octopus]

do you know any tweaks for US RObotics V90?

[mikill]

sorry to disappoint you but I see no improvement in my connection  :(

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he never mention a guarantee that it would. realize that when it comes to dialup, it's a hit or miss that u'll get good speed/ping or not.

[Paschendale]

WARNING! l followed the advice in this guide and my internet connection slowed to a crawl.

And what you are not told here is that if you uninstall QoS you FTP client will no longer work!

This guide has lost me three days of work trying to sort out why l could no longer use FTP!

:angry:

585181856[/snapback]

Are you on a QoS enabled network? The majority of people should be able to uninstall QoS without any side effects, as stated by SpeedGuide.net's mnosteele52: "You should be able to just uninstall the QoS Packet Scheduler without affecting anything else, I have never seen it cause any issues." I assume your ISP must have an uncommon configuration for the result to be so drastic as the loss of FTP. Also, please don't make such hyperbolic statements - FTP is NOT certain to stop working after you remove QoS.

the best guide to optimize 56k is to get rid of it and get cable or dsl.

585183364[/snapback]

"The best way to re-fuel my car's empty tank is to buy a new Porsche." See where your arguement fails?

D-Link DFM-562IS HSFi PCI Modem, does anybody has a good init string for this... thanks in advance

585492111[/snapback]

do you know any tweaks for US RObotics V90?

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I'm not too familar with specific modem numbers, but I'd suggest you guys try Googling the model of your modem. There's a wealth of information in the Google Groups worth checking out (eg. tests, results, comparrissons etc). If you can't find anything there, be sure to let me know!

Nice guide,

I have an internal 56k modem, with probably the most perfect line conditions possible.  I connect every single time at 56.6kbps, which is a correct readout, because on a reasonably good server I can get steady d/l speeds of 6 and even 7KB/s (The absolute maximum possible download speed for a 56k modem)  So until I get a 2Mbit/s Broadband connection (Yes I know, New Zealand is behind in the broadband race, we're still using copper wire  :rolleyes: ) I'm happy with my little beast of a modem. :pinch:

DigitallyInsane^

-Surge05 Resurrected-

585595558[/snapback]

Haha, I feel your pain. Here in Australia we are the tortoise in the broadband race. ;)

he never mention a guarantee that it would. realize that when it comes to dialup, it's a hit or miss that u'll get good speed/ping or not.

585621486[/snapback]

Yup, some people fail to realise that results vary from person to person, and think that everything is either black and white. If only that were the case, eh buddy?