Dial up 58K

[bgets]

I flew up to see my older sister who is using AOL and 58K dial up. I built her a new computer just for her simple uses. My question it this. It's been years since I had dial up so I don't remember how slow it was.
Her connection speed is 33,000kbs. When I download something it slows to around 1.6 kbs!!. Is that normal? Or is there something she can do? I have run MSCONFIG and she has just a few applications running.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Bob G.

[Paxx]

Yes I am sorry to say that is pretty normal. Dial up will 'connect' at a certain speed but the telco line quality as well as the noise on it will degrade the signal (speed), so you will see variations in download speed and overall 'quickness'.

It is also possible that AOL was downloading some update for its software or content in the background unbeknown to the user, which can slow things also. The Windows update routine if on auto update can do the same thing. If you are getting 2.2KBs downloads or better you are doing pretty good for dialup.

Edit: I'm pretty sure that 1.6 you were getting was KBs not Kbs, there is a difference (http://www.dslreports.com/faq/1061). It is generally accepted that capital "B" is bytes, lower case "b" is bits.

[Jim Robinson]

I'm on perpetual dial-up out here in the sticks and it's painfully slow but no where near that slow. I connect at 42.6-44 Kbps normally and can usually download a file at around 4.2-4.6 KB/Sec according to the IE download dialog. I have 2 connections with 2 different ISPs in case one goes down (it happens frequently) and both are very similar in speed. Ignoring any speed indications from any of the various apps I use that download things, bottom line is I can pull in about 13MB per hour according the clock on the wall. I have a neighbor that uses NetZero and he gets speeds similar to what you describe. I'd ditch AOL in a heartbeat and find Sis a local ISP that can give you a phone number, a username, and a password and that's all. That's all she needs, anything more is just bloatware.

Jim

[angels355]

I get on average 3.5 to 5.5 KB/s, the fastest I've ever seen is 10 KB/s downloading an ATI driver.

I turn off all auto updates, and update at night.

Does your sister have a 56 K V92 modern PCI dial up modem? Or does she have an older 33 K dial up modem, PCI or ISA? A newer dial up modem can increase the speed a little bit.

What kind of processor and ram does she have? My first dial up computer was a 486 DX, that computer plus dial up was so slow and miserable that I disassembled it and recycled it when I got a faster computer.

I hate dial up, but in this economy I hate big bills even more! One time I downloaded 75 MB, it took me about 7 1/2 hours! And that was smoking!

[Paxx]

Wow your guy's dialup rocks compared to what we got here back in the day. I'm glad I didn't know that then. I averaged about 10mins per 1MB back then (early-mid '90s). 33k and 56k was such an improvement over 9600bps and the lowly 2400bps I used to sign on to Compuserve, Prodigy and BBS services in the days before Al invented the internet.

I second the dump AOL and get a real ISP advice Bob, the monthly cost should be about the same if not less than AOL, but that will depend on where she lives. AOL will constantly update it's software and add content, slowing her down.

[bgets]

Thanks guys. I just didn't remember dial up being that slow. I will send her this information.
Bob G.

[Chairborne]

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