Help Me understand 56K dialup...????

[mytfastss]

O.K. I,ve been on Dialup for years, and Im trying to understand and Tweak my Modem for the fastest Downloads and best possible speeds..

Currently, Im with Earthlink...Using their 5* accelerator and My Average Speed is 62kbps according to Online tests based on my Compression of graphics and text..

I usually sign on at 45.2kbps up to a best of 52kbps...

My Compression is 3-5% usually..

Question?? Is my Compression level Good?? Is higher better, or is lower better??

I,ve seen a picture on here where someones compression ratio was like 53% sent and 56% received....

[skuz]

Compression ratio is based on the data that is sent. If a very compressible file is transferred, .bmp or .doc for example, then you will achieve high compression level. If you download a .zip file, your compression will be very near 0%, since it's already compressed.

Just enable compression and forget the ratios. There is hardware and software compression available, just don't use both at the same time, it's a waste of time to recompress something already compressed.

[Starfury_2260]

You're lucky my dialup's best connection speed is 28.8 and thats not any good because it tends to be slower than the normal connection speed which is 26.4
My connection also tends to go through periods of constant disconnecting or refusing to connect at all.

[John Prophet]

Starfury. It sounds like you have bad phone lines. What kind of modem do you have? My bet would be an internal "soft" modem.

You need to get a nice "hardware" modem. Or maybe an external serial modem.

A software modem is the newer kind of modem..its uses the cpu to do some of the work etc.

A hardware modem is an older, but better, type of modem. It doesnt rely on the cpu to do the work.

An external serial modem is pretty much going to be a hardware modem.

Anyway, a hardware modem can somewhat "make up" for a phone line being a little weak/noisy.

Case in point. A girl bought a comp from a store I used to work at. It had a software modem and it connected fine at the store, in the city.

She took it home, out in the county....and it didnt connect worth 5 cents. She brought it back in, it connected fine.

Obvious phone line difficulty.

I went out to check it out. It wouldnt connect at all or when it did it would give a sad number like 12k, lol.

She would try to print stuff from online and it wouldt work.

I tried another internal (probably software) modem and it was the same.

I slapped on an external serial modem...BOOM...56k all day long. She could print from the internet etc, no problem.

So for around $25 you might ought to at least give that a try, especially if you live in the county or you are pretty sure you have sketchy phone lines.

for instance http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp...d=5RJTAI-35500

or maybe http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp...=CDIMM00131-NB

JP

[Starfury_2260]

yeah i live in the country and bad lines is probably the problem
I'm building a new system and I plan to get one of those hardware modems (which means they have a onboard controller).
Someone here had actually suggested that Cendyne. It certainly would look better on top of my black case than a white one.
The serial connection for that cendyne is still on new motherboards isn't it? I dont know cause I dont use serial connections for nothing. Thanks for the info.

[Starfury_2260]

if it gives me a better connection on my new computer i'll have to get more for the other comps in the house.

[skuz]

Serial definitely IS hardware modem, you can't go wrong about this.

All boards I've worked with still have at least 1 serial connector.

[Starfury_2260]

Well then I think I'll get that one.

[DoctorReno]

PM me with your email address and I will try to send you some stuff tomorrow or soon that you can do that can help your modem work a little better.