Upgraded to XP, now I have a dial-up question. (1 Viewer)

[Scott Wong]

A buddy of mine came over a few days ago and helped me out with my PC. I upgraded from Windows 98 (not SE... just 98) to Windows XP (professional edition). I also obtained a Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 20GB hard drive. I now have two 20GB hard drives installed.

I currently have a dial-up connection. With as much as I use the Internet at home, it's fine. Anyway, prior to upgrading to XP, I was consistently connecting to my local ISP at speeds of anywhere from 48kbps - 51kbps (which isn't too shabby for dial-up) Now that I have XP installed, my internal US Robotics 56K Win Modem won't budge past the 44kbps-45kbps mark. Nothing terrible significant but in the world of dial-up, I'll take what I can get.

I'm not sure what other information may be needed, but can anyone toss out some ideas for me?

Scott.

 

[Justin Ward]

That's pretty good, I only get 26kbits/s on my dialup. Are you still using the same line to connect your modem to the phone line?

 

[Scott Wong]

No, that's just it. Nothing else changed. I just upgraded to XP and installed the second hard drive. I'm using the same phone line with the same internal modem. A co-worker of mine insisted it was because I added the second hard drive. "things are now out of synch..." or something like that. He attempted to put it more eloquently but, in my opinion, he's full of it. The second hard drive has nothing to do with my dial-up connection. But evidently, I'm assuming XP is treating my internal modem a different way that Win98 originally did.

Scott.

 

[Tom Lowden]

I agree that your co-worker sounds like he's full of it. Anyway, the difference may lie in either:
1) the driver that Windows XP is using for your modem. You may want to check the manufacturer's website for the latest driver and try that.

2) the phone number that the connection is using. When we upgraded my Mom's pc from Win98 to WinXP, we lost some speed on the dial-up account. It was because Microsoft has thousands of phone numbers for the various ISP's it knows about. Sometimes in the setup, it will ask you if you want Windows XP to help you setup the dial-up connection. Some of the phone numbers it knows about may be old or outdated and may actually connect you to a slower connection. You may want to check with your ISP to make sure you're connecting to the fastest phone number you can.

Honestly, neither of these may improve your connection speed, but they certainly wouldn't hurt to try. Your connection is only marginally slower than it was before. The difference on my Mom's was 48kbps vs. 26kbps, so it was a major difference (in relative terms).

Good luck!

- Tom -

 

[DaveGTP]

In my upgrade, I went from 36-41 up to 40-44 K (and we almost always get 44 K). And that was with the XP drivers, which are quite possibly different. The phone # did not change though, as I set it up myself (free college access). I would agree that you track down the official drivers, they can make a big difference for dial-ups.

 

[Scott Wong]

Thanks... I'll take a look at finding updated drivers.

Scott.