Dial-up question

[Humboldt]

Wrong forum maybe but not sure where else to put this.

I've got dial-up, put in the 2 phone lines myself. One with regular phone line and 1 cat5.

I can't connect at any higher than about 33Kbps though, normally 31.2

Direct line from the phone line out on the street to my phone box, then the 2 phone lines I ran individually.

Any ideas why the connection is so bad? I know it's a crap shoot with dial-up speeds but the phone line is right there, the speeds don't vary enough to make me think it's general line conditions...

Main question I guess, when I go to Windows Task Manager/Networking, it gives my link speed at 28.8Kbps

Is this just a reading of my current speed or is that a setting somewhere that I can change?

Any tips or ideas or feedback welcome.

Thank you.

[morbidpete]

when i used to have dial up like 4 years ago i dont think i ever got speeds that fast..so to me i thin your lucky

[YeOldeStonecat]

Several things related to dial up. Line quality in our house is certainly one thing, and that's controllable by you, which you've done.

Line quality from where your house connects to the lines on the street....and whatevers in the path on the way to the CO. That's something the phone company is in charge of, and if you're getting so-so performance, very little you can do about that. Last I knew, the phone company only guarantees a 9600 connection, so as long as you're connecting above that, they usually don't care. However I do remember having some luck constantly complaining about line noise when using the phone, static sounds, etc. Sometimes a lineman can move your line to another jack in a box somewhere on the street, current one might have moisture, etc. That one time I remember when they fixed that, I was getting 50,666 connection every time from then on.

Quality of your modem. Winmodems generally won't connect as high, nor perform as well, as a good hardware control based modem.

The number that you connect to with your ISP. Sometimes your ISP will have several different phone numbers to connect to. A few years ago this was common, because V.90 hadn't been a standard yet, and when 56k modems first came out, there were two different types, KFlex, and X2. You had better performance connecting to the type that matched your modem type.

Bump up the baud rate of your COM port that matches the com port your modem is on. You'll find it set at 9600 by default, crank it up to 38k or 57k or even 115k. Done in Device Manager.

If your modems driver allows you to adjust the modem, adjust it to match what you set the COM port at. This is not the transmitting speed of the modem BTW, such as 28.8, or 33.6, or 56k, this is the port speed compression.

[Humboldt]

Thanks for all the tips, I apprciate your help YOSC.
One question...the modem is listed as being at COM3 and there's no reference to that along with the other ports in Device Mananger. I can change the rate of COM1 and COM2 but where would I change it for COM3 if not listed there?

Thanks

[YeOldeStonecat]

Ahh an internal modem, the driver creates a virtual com port for those, so as you noticed, nothing in Device Mangler do fiddle with under ports com/lpt.

[Humboldt]

So I'm SOL there?

Thanks

[YeOldeStonecat]

So I'm SOL there?

Thanks

What's the modem? Do you have any opportunity to try an external hardware controller based modem? Like a USR 5686 model?

[Humboldt]

It's a Zoom V.92 PCI Fax modem. Probably just going to keep this in hopes of getting cable soon anyway.

[RAAF453_Shep]

Humboldt , I was on dial up for 12 years . I lived ub a rural area where even caller ID wasnt available ! , but my dial up , separate line ( extra $30 a month , + the ISP , $22 more ) cost me as much then as my cable does now , in the big city. my 56k modem @ $125 ( then, for a USR pro ) astonished me by upping my usual 24k to a whopping 28 ! , .... the reason , I discovered after that point , there was a SCHOOL , between me and the local telephone switch house. So guess who got the LIONS share of the line ? certainly not me who paid taxes so they had access !

might be worth looking into... but the 28 I had wasnt a matter of slow speed, it xfer'd like it was 56k. Chin up lad, it could be a soggy oatmeal box !