Modem speed

[Alver]

Hello to helpfull specialists,

My daughter runs an old pc (Win 98 SE, Pentium 180, 48 MB ram) for very
simple household Office tasks, and ocassional e-mailing and surfing via a
56k telephone modem. On the modem properties page, general tab I have set
the modem speed at its max of 115200 baud but very often the internet
connection is only at 26 or 33k. Now under the max speed there is an
optional tick box "Only connect at this speed" but it is grayed out. How can
I make this accessible again? I would prefer my daughter only to connect at
56k or is this not a good idea??
Any comments would be highly appreciated.

 

[Jim Macklin]

Modem speed is determined by the weakest link in the chain.
56k is the maximum, but if your phone line is noisy, if the
server at the sending end is over-loaded, the speed will be
reduced. If you want more speed, get her a newer computer,
even the cheapest Dell is far superior to her old machine.
I would suggest that adding more RAM to her machine might
help a little bit, but the old RAM is now getting hard to
find and expensive, a new Dell might be cheaper.

You might consider some faster ISP, perhaps DSL or cable if
more speed is needed. But for her uses, the POTS [plain old
telephone system] will do.

Microsoft has now withdrawn all support for W98, and your
old computer won't run XP, so your next option is that new
computer.


| Hello to helpfull specialists,
|
| My daughter runs an old pc (Win 98 SE, Pentium 180, 48
MB ram) for very
| simple household Office tasks, and ocassional e-mailing
and surfing via a
| 56k telephone modem. On the modem properties page, general
tab I have set
| the modem speed at its max of 115200 baud but very often
the internet
| connection is only at 26 or 33k. Now under the max speed
there is an
| optional tick box "Only connect at this speed" but it is
grayed out. How can
| I make this accessible again? I would prefer my daughter
only to connect at
| 56k or is this not a good idea??
| Any comments would be highly appreciated.
|
|

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

Alver

Get the line checked out and replace the cable connecting computer to phone
jack.. using a good modem would help too.. US Robotics still make the best
56k modems, and will generally connect at better speeds and for longer than
others..

 

[Don Schmidt]

The 115200 baud is the speed from your computer to the modem, yes within
your computer case. The 56 k is the max of the modem but due to FCC
limitations is held to ~52 K. Your 26 to 33 k is normal, best not to mess
with it.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

My daughter runs an old pc (Win 98 SE, Pentium 180, 48 MB ram) for
very simple household Office tasks, and ocassional e-mailing and
surfing via a 56k telephone modem. On the modem properties page,
general tab I have set the modem speed at its max of 115200 baud but
very often the internet connection is only at 26 or 33k. Now under
the max speed there is an optional tick box "Only connect at this
speed" but it is grayed out. How can I make this accessible again? I
would prefer my daughter only to connect at 56k or is this not a good
idea??

Several points:

1. You can never connect at 115200 bps. That's the computer to modem speed,
not the speed on the telephone line.

2. You can't even connect at 56K. The macimum speed (at least in the US; I'm
not sure about the rest of the world) is limited by the FCC to 53K.

3. The actual speed you achieve is limited by several factors, not least the
quality of your local lines. When I had dialup service, despite my having an
excellent 56K modem, I usually connected at 26.4, and *never* at more than
28.8. I tried many different things, but never succeeded in improving that
because my local lines wouldn't support a faster connection.

Your daughter may be in the same situation I was, and can't connect any
faster. If that's the case, not permitting slower connections would be
counterproductive. She wouldn't be able to connect at all.

However it doesn't hurt to check with the telephone company to see if they
can do anything to speed up the connection for her.

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

Ken

I had dialup at 52k on a USR 5660A.. an Intel 536 would only give 46.6k
tops.. a client of mine had 26k until she changed the pc to wall cable.. now
she gets 48k..

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I had dialup at 52k on a USR 5660A.. an Intel 536 would only give
46.6k tops.. a client of mine had 26k until she changed the pc to
wall cable.. now she gets 48k..

Yes, as I said, there are many factors that can limit the speed. I don't
claim that the quality of the line is *always* the critical factor, just
that it can be. It was in my case. I used a USR modem, changed cables, etc.
Nothing helped.

Trying what you suggest is certainly a good idea for the OP.

 

[philo]

Hello to helpfull specialists,

My daughter runs an old pc (Win 98 SE, Pentium 180, 48 MB ram) for very
simple household Office tasks, and ocassional e-mailing and surfing via a
56k telephone modem. On the modem properties page, general tab I have set
the modem speed at its max of 115200 baud but very often the internet
connection is only at 26 or 33k. Now under the max speed there is an
optional tick box "Only connect at this speed" but it is grayed out. How
can I make this accessible again? I would prefer my daughter only to
connect at 56k or is this not a good idea??
Any comments would be highly appreciated.

First off, 56k is the theoretical max...but most modems will not actaually
connect at that speed...
but 33k is not the end of the world.
the problem might be in the phone line itself...
but if you are using a "win modem" you may see a little improvement with a
"hardware" modem
but i doubt if it's worth spending the money on.

you may want to consider going DSL or cable

 

[Guest]

As was pointed out, the baud speed pertains to the *inside* of your machine.
When your signal hits the phone lines (POTS) it's another story entirely. As
was not pointed out, these figures of 26k, 33k, etc. don't mean what you
think they mean. A google search will net you some very good, albeit
disappointing, pages about your speed over the telephone lines.

kbps and kb/s are 2 different animals going, thanks to popular advertising,
by the same *assumed* name. The 26Ks your signal is traveling at is actually
26 KBits. That will translate to about 4Kb/s (bytes) (download) which is
about the average dialup connection in the US. I have a very good DSL
connection that nets me about 27Kb/s. That 27Kb/s is the actual download
speed with the upload speed about 1/2 of that. My dialup speed is about 4 or
5 Kb/s on a good day as yours will be.

If you go to Speedometer and check your speed you'll get your 26K that the
salesman told you that you'd get but underneath you'll see, in paran, (4
kbps) which is what you will really be running at.

To repeat: there are many sites that will explain this *56K fallacy*. There
just ain't no such animal.! But the fallacy sure sells a lot of PCs.!!

Chas.

 

[Alver]

Thanks to all who took the time to study and answer my request. I now have a
better understanding of the phenomenon.