Slowdown

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This is a general question, although HOI is affected by it. I finally brokedown and went for Cable Internet. The download speeds are fantastic, but I noticed a slowing down of overall computer performance, including HOI.(The mouse is a bit sluggish at times,and the clock seems a bit slower. My machine is a dinosaur(566 Celeron, 256 MB RAM, TNT 2 Graphics, Direct X 8) so I expect a bit of a slowdown. One thing that bugs me is if I leave the connection but idle for 20 minutes or so, I can't access any sites unless I restart. I haven't checked with the Cable Company yet, although I am sure their response will be it must be my machine, which is probably correct. Is the cable setup that much of resource hog? I am thinking about throwing in another 128Megs of RAM, although I would rather save my currently limited resources for a new machine hopefully within the next year. Any thoughts,techies?

 

[Castellon]

Do you have an E-mail program or messanger / ICQ running in the background?
Anything running in the back ground?

 

[unmerged(17162)]

Do you have an E-mail program or messanger / ICQ running in the background?
Anything running in the back ground?

I have Norton anti virus running, plus a few other things that cone up on CTRL/ALT/DEL...closing them out doesn't make much of a difference. I cleaned out some unused programs and reinstalled the cable modem drivers to see if it helps. I think I'm just the victim of a obsolete machine.

 

[Castellon]

Check with the cable company, my connection does not shutdown after 20 min of non use.

 

[jpd]

For most Cable connections, it is very normal that they close down on a certain amount of inactivitiy. The cable modems behave quite similar to ISDN dialup modems, in that they are set to dialup on demand.

Most cable operators don't have enough free IP numbers to cover all their customers, so the ones they have must be shared among the customers, and releasing the link upon inactivity is one way of dealing with that.

The problem with this setup, of course, is that you run the risk of getting a 'busy' signal on your cable modem, when the available IP numbers have run out.

Another reason might be your own PC's power management, but I cannot say that for sure until you specify what those 20 minutes of inactivity mean. If it means you are doing absolutely nothing with your PC, then power management may indeed kick in, and especially on older PC's this can cause problems with USB and ethernet equipment. They don't wake up very well, resulting in a loss of connection, and a need to reboot to regain normal operations.

Thirdly, the overall speed. The speed reduction is probably caused by your cable modem software, but, again, I cannot say that for certain until you specify what exactly got installed when you installed your cable modem.

I do know the procedure with one of our larger cable operators in the Netherlands. Even if you purchase the ethernet modem, they still require you to install custom made dialup software. That software installs a communications layer on your PC, which takes care of connect/disconnect (the first point I mentioned), and reconfigures your PC to get an 169.x.x.x IP number, instead of the normal 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x ones.

Well, to make a long story short. I installed a run-of-the-mill cable router on by boss's cable connection, and programmed it for PPPoE. Now the link does not disconnect anymore (I set it up as always-on), and the extra software layer is no longer needed on the PC's.

Jan Peter

 

[Castellon]

I do know the procedure with one of our larger cable operators in the Netherlands. Even if you purchase the ethernet modem, they still require you to install custom made dialup software. That software installs a communications layer on your PC, which takes care of connect/disconnect (the first point I mentioned), and reconfigures your PC to get an 169.x.x.x IP number, instead of the normal 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x ones.

Well, to make a long story short. I installed a run-of-the-mill cable router on by boss's cable connection, and programmed it for PPPoE. Now the link does not disconnect anymore (I set it up as always-on), and the extra software layer is no longer needed on the PC's.

Jan Peter

My cable is always on and does not require any connection program, I suspect most NA cable companies use this method.

 

[unmerged(21814)]

For most Cable connections, it is very normal that they close down on a certain amount of inactivitiy. The cable modems behave quite similar to ISDN dialup modems, in that they are set to dialup on demand.

Most cable operators don't have enough free IP numbers to cover all their customers, so the ones they have must be shared among the customers, and releasing the link upon inactivity is one way of dealing with that.

Jan Peter

Huh? I know for a fact that my IP address changes only once in several weeks (if not months). And that was the case even when I had only one computer and no router.

 

[jpd]

Huh? I know for a fact that my IP address changes only once in several weeks (if not months). And that was the case even when I had only one computer and no router.

One does not rule out the other. When enough free addresses are available, the DHCP server will try to issue you the same IP address you obtained in a previous session. Heck, even the DHCP server in my DSL router does that

Only when that particular IP address is taken by another user, you will get a different one. This will happen, naturally, more often with cable operators that have a limited IP address range when compared to the number of customers.

Jan Peter

 

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Interesting. As Castellon stated, we don't need any extra connectivity programs here. As far as power management, I have disabled those options, the machine stays powered up until I shut it down. Inactivity refers to onlne activity. Whether the computer is totally idle, or I am plying HOI makes no difference. Since I don't have a firewall in yet, I shut the modem off when not surfing, I thought this may be the problem , but it doesn't matter. I'm going to ask around some more. As far as the speed reduction, I uninstalled and reinstalled the modem software, and since I don't need it for access anymore, I dumped the AOL software. That has helped greatly. Now the machine is at it's normal sluggish pace. I am going to defrag later. Is there a limit on how much memory this machine will take? I might throw in another 128 Megs or so. Its a 566 Celeron. Thanks for the info on the cable setup.

 

[jpd]

Well, then it must be the auto-disconnect setting of your cable modem. I presume it isn't set to always on, but you can probably check that.

As for modem software. That's a bit curious. If you don't need any connectivity software, why do you install modem software at all? Over here in Holland, when the modem (either cable or DSL) is setup as a PPPoE router (or has such a cable/xDSL router attached), the PC doesn't need any modem software at all. Just an ethernet card, it's drivers, the Microsoft networking client and the TCP/IP protocol stack.

As for extending memory. It really depends on the chipset of your mobo how much it can accept. Check the manual of your mobo for specifics.

Keep in mind that any Windows version upto and including ME doesn't handle anything beyond 512 MB, so it doesn't help you when you install more than 512 MB if you have one of these older OS'es installed.

Jan Peter

 

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I probably misstated by using the term software. All that is installed are the drivers, then the connection is automatically configured. As far as auto disconnect, I didn't know there was such a setting. I will check it out.

 

[Castellon]

Check with your cable company they would be best able to diagnose your problem.

 

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Not to drag this out, but I checked with the cable company, they suggest switching out the USB connection for the Ethernet card. I guess it's worth a shot.

 

[Castellon]

Good luck!