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"Windows XP and ADSL"

Having finally moved onto new PC with Windows XP and installed a few things, I came across the 'Network Connections' area, and found something rather interesting.

I have my Pipex connection listed, which uses the USB ADSL Modem as expected, yet unfortunately gives a poor reading of only 28.8kbps as a speed.

Thing is though, I've found an 'ATM Connection' in the same place, which on clicking, gives me the properties of it being an active connection ... a connection also via my ADSL Modem, and gives a reading of 288.0kbps which is a fair bit.

Is this a normal thing for XP, or is this in fact a better alternative to my current connection??? I don't understand a whole lot about networks and connection protocols, so all the options within it don't mean much to me.

Basically, I'd like to know if this faster 'ATM connection' is anything I should use, or indeed be worried about?? It appears to connect as soon as I log on, yet doesn't ask for a Username or Password, and doesn't seem to do anything in terms of letting me go online.

thanks for any help from anyone on this matter.

cjh wrote:
> Well, tried that third section from the link, and managed to get some
> results.
>
> The speeds appear to have increased by 48kbps for the Downstream and
> about 3kbps for Upstream. Would this be a good improvment??

So what MTU and RWIN values have you tried ? When you say 48kbps what are you talking about kbits or kbytes? I get around 475Kbps(kBits) downstream and 252Kbps(kBits) upstream.

Well, tried that third section from the link, and managed to get some results.

The speeds appear to have increased by 48kbps for the Downstream and about 3kbps for Upstream. Would this be a good improvment??

hhhmmm, after chaning my values, the speeds appear to be the same, with a 1 bit difference within the Upstream.

Strange though, that the second set of values you recommended dropped my Downstream speed by over 160kbps.

cjh wrote:
> MTU and RWIN values!
>
> Unfortunatly not ... so I guess that might have something to do with
> it. I'll check out the site, thanks.

Go to http://www.pengbo.dsl.pipex.com (SPACE) /ppages/tweaks.shtml

Its the page to a Pipex user and it details what is needed to tweak your connection.

MTU and RWIN values are essential as this tells Windows what size packets to use and how long it should send the packets before stopping to wait for a reply. If MTU is too high packets are needed to be Fragmented at the exchange causing slow down. Typically the MTU should be 1458 or lower on ADSL. Set the MTU too low and not enough data is sent at once meaning your using up your CPU time and wasting lots of bandwidth on useless information. RWIN values also have to be just right. Too high and you can get lots of errors, too low and speeds can be very poor.

Normally the 2 that work best on ADSL are 1430 MTU with 13900 RWIN, this is what I use. And 1458 MTU with a 12762 RWIN. Go to the page go to the links and test your connection. Tweak if necessary and you should see a much better connection.

MTU and RWIN values!

Unfortunatly not ... so I guess that might have something to do with it. I'll check out the site, thanks.

cjh wrote:
> I see, well that makes more sence, thanks :)
>
> Still, 24kbps when the max is 64kbps, I'll have to get this looked
> into.

Max is around 60k/s, It is technically 64k/s but due to over heads the actual amount of useful data is around 60k/s.

Do you actually know about MTU and RWIN values? Because this is very important. If your having problems go to www.adslguide.org.uk and then go to the message boards and post something in the Pipex forum. People in there can help with MTU and RWIN and get your connection working again.

I am with Pipex and can easily get over 60k/s from a good source. Give me a decent FTP and I can download at an average of 61k/s.

Taka-Q wrote:
> If you have an Alcatel modem don't worry, as they have loads of
> 28.8kbps channels that equal the total it can manage (norm 8Mbps)

Ignor that. I hadent read the rest (silly me). As I have said before to some other person who had got broadband and was complaing about low speads for downloads, its the site server, rather than you connection that is slow. Get a program like DAP (http://www.speedbit.com), which conects to the server more thatn once, so increases download speed.

If you have an Alcatel modem don't worry, as they have loads of 28.8kbps channels that equal the total it can manage (norm 8Mbps)

I don't actually have broadband, as it isn't available in my area, but I use Freeserve Anytime.

I just did one of those speed tests:
"115.3 kilobits per second" on a 512 kilobites line.

Not to good.

Who's your ISP BTW? I'm on Pipex.