How can I speed up a winmodem?

[Jorden]

After all these years online, my old ISA modem got a jolt of electricity during a thunderstorm and decided it was time to say goodbye. So I had to buy me a new one, PCI this time, called Trust 56k PCI.

Ofcourse, when installing this modem in WinME, I had to use the Win98 drivers to get it to work. But work at that moment is a maximum of 45,333bps, which I think is way below the 'promised' 49,000 to 56,000bps as said in the manual

I know it could be my telephone line, and whereas I could set my old modem to 115,200bps and connect to this speed only, I cannot do so with this modem (which stinks).

• Is there a way to set the initialization string to some worth that will give me a guaranteed line speed of more than this? AT&F will set it to 115,200 but when I make a connection to the net then, it will only call my ISP and I can't do anything else then. Not surf, no email, nothing.
• Is there another way to speed up my modem?
• Would there be any way to revive my old modem? It's a Rockwell PC56RVP modem.

I've tried the WinME drivers for this modem, and they make it an Intel modem then, with a WDM modem enumerator which takes up an IRQ, and the modem being only in the list, but unavailable to play around with

Any help would be welcome, or I will surely be fragbait again in Saturday's upcoming UT fest
Jord.

[Maggi]

Already tried IntelliDialUp ?

[The Scientist]

Hi Jorden,

unless I'm mistaken the 115,000bps speed set on your previous modem would be the maximum speed your modem could connect to the serial or com port on your PC and not the transfer speed attained between your modem and your ISP connection. Your new modem is reporting the actual max speed of your dialup connection not just the modem to port speed.

If you go into the modem settings dialogue in control panel you should see your modem listed and if you hit the properties button you will get a second dialogue showing various options for the modem. One of these under the general tab allows you to change the port speed (anything from 110 to 460800 on my PC). Even if you set this to the max value you cannot attain higher transfer speeds on a 56k dialup connection than 56,000bps - hence 56k. 45,333 is the average sort of transfer speed I see on my connection which is below the theoretical max but I guess this has more to do with the phone line and the number of extensions etc plugged in.

There are a number of tweaks for optimising dial up network traffic under W9x and I use a program (freeware) called ISpeed for windows by high mountain software http://www.hms.com/

maybe someone else can give you more info but I hope this helps some...

- Simon

[Jorden]

Thanks Simon.

I knew already that my actual speed wasn't 115k2, but the speed was in the direction of V90 (about 58k). With the old modem I could also access my banking program. My new modem isn't showing up in there, so I have a big problem now
And all my serial ports are set at 230400bps. Thanks though

But okay, I am downloading Maggi's suggestion first (version 2.52) and try it.

At this moment I only have the modem listed in my IRQ list, so I guess it's hardware (using the Win98 updated drivers), but it won't show up in my bankprogram.

I'll have to figure that one out on my own, I guess. Or just call my bank and ask for an updated version

Jord.

[Jorden]

Ahum, tried Maggi's option. Didn't work. It downgraded my speed to 42,000 ... lower than I ever had.

I'll try your option now, Simon

Anyone else out there who might come up with something?

Oh, and my old modem is not a Rockwell, but an E-Tech PC56RVP with Rockwell chipset.

Jord.

[DentyCracker]

I refused to put a PCI modem in my macine. If you must buy a PCI modem for God's sake get a Lucent Technologies WinModem. It is the only one I trust (it works in BeOS and Linux). I plunked down the US$44 and got myself an external CNET V.90 serial port modem with the Cirrus Logic|Ambient|Intel chipset. I connect at 50666 almost without fail. Plus I am 100% sure it would work with your bank program

[Jorden]

Thanks Denty... I am already thinking to go back to the shop tomorrow and give them there card back, ask my money back (although it's Dixons, they don't give money back, they do vouchers... yuck!!) or buy me an external modem there.

Jord.

[Greebe]

Ummm, buy a real modem maybe?

[Bohrn]

Like Greebe and Jordan say, get a good quality ISA jumpered modem. They are harder to find, but I found one, and it was WAY better than my much more expensive Daiamond SupraMax. I won't get rid of it. Just incase I need it.

------------------
AsusP3B-F,P3 880 Slot1, 512megsPC133,G40032megSH, Diamond MX300,13.5gigs of HD's,52X CDrom,WinME, PD 6.21 ,Altec Lansing ATP3Subwoofer,
Envision 17",Terrayon Cable modem,Linksys EtherFast LNE100TX nic,1 grey cat,1 black cat & 1 calico

[Jorden]

I would love to die to get another ISA modem, but the only one I can buy around here is a Dynalink (175 guilders), whereas PCI's go for 90 guilders and externals go for 150 guilders. I think the Dynalink is a bit expensive then, especially when I will be updating to an ADSL in 3 months

And the Dynalink is especially expensive when you look around any shop these days and see mobo's with only an AGP port and PCI slots...

Jord

[dZeus]

www.xenon.nl

hardware PCI modems for 65 Dutch guilders (conexant chipset).

[Maggi]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by Jorden:
Ahum, tried Maggi's option. Didn't work. It downgraded my speed to 42,000 ... lower than I ever had.
...
Jord.</font>

Whooops ... sorry Jord.
Worked fine on my former 33.6 modem, ie. my avrg d/l went from <2kB to >2.5kB and that was a gain of roughly 25%.

Cheers,
Maggi

[KvHagedorn]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">How can I speed up a winmodem?</font>

Let's see..

1) Take it to the top of a very high building
2) Toss it off
3) (Now where was that formula for terminal velocity?) Hmm.. well just trust me there, Jord.. it'll speed up..

------------------
Kind Regards,

KvH

(The proud owner of one of the original US Robotics x2 Sportster 56k ISA modems, as well as a USR ISA Courier V.everything 56k, protected from lightning by a surge protector, UPS, and line filter. )

[Rags]

Not in my experience.

Rags

[omegaRED]

For gaming, connect speed isnt that important. Try disabling Compression to get some better pings. That is if the modem is the problem, and not the phone line.

PS. Anyone correct me if i`m wrong about this.

------------------
Seth, are you ok ?
I`m peachy, Kate. The world is my oyster.