🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sun, 8 Aug 1999 18:23:50 +0100, "John"
<johnca@SPAMKILLERbtinternet.com> wrote:

>A mate of mine has just loaded the free ISP CD from Barclays Bank which, it
>seems, installs IE4 as the browser and uses BT Click as the service or
>dialler.
>
>He's never been on the Internet before in his life and didn't even know what
>a browser was until last night, so during the installation he just accepted
>all the default settings but then had trouble connecting. I went round and
>sorted that out (the TCP/IP protocol wouldn't bind to the dial-up adapter -
>uninstalled and reinstalled adapter and protocol; now working fine).
>
>The problem is that when connected to the Internet, the computer slows right
>down to a snail's pace; when typing a new URL in the address bar, each
>character takes seconds to appear - I hit the first w (of www.) and after
>about 3 seconds nothing had happened. I thought it wasn't working, so I hit
>it again. After about 20 or 25 seconds I ended up with 5 w's up there and I
>realised that each keystroke was taking about 4 or 5 seconds to appear and
>web pages are taking minutes to download. I moved the mouse to see how the
>cursor behaved and it took absolutely ages to get from one side of the
>screen to the other, moving very, very, slowly and jerkily. It's like the
>whole computer seems to be immersed in very thick treacle and almost grinds
>to a halt.
>
>This ONLY happens when connected to the Internet - the computer runs
>normally when viewing web pages offline (in the history folder) or doing
>anything else such as word processing or using PaintShop Pro. I've helped
>two other people install the Barclays Net software but never come across
>this before.
>
>He's got a PCtel 288I HSP internal modem, which is one of these "winmodem"
>things that utilises the computer's main processor rather than having one of
>it's own which I never did like. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer an
>external modem with lots of LED status lights and it's own innards - you
>know where you stand with them. According to PCtel's website, system
>requirements for this modem are Cyrix 6x86 @ 100MHz (he has a Cyrix 6x86
>running at 110MHz) and 8Mb RAM (he has 32Mb).
>
>Apart from the Internet software he's just loaded from Barclays, he also has
>Cheyenne Bitware (I think that's what it's called anyway)
>installed. This is some sort of telephone answering and fax software, so
>could this be conflicting in some way?
>
>Any ideas on the above or, can anyone think of anything else that may be
>causing the problem?
I would suggest not using the PCtel modem, these use the main
processor for a large number of the modem functions, the result being
is that the system resources are stretched to the limit.
In the long term, your friend would be more than happy with an
external modem. In the course of my job I have found that the 3COM/USR
Message modem to be one of the most reliable and gives extremely good
performance, you could expect to see between 42 to 52kbps connections


John Reynolds
e-mail Johnreynolds@cs.com
       JreynoldsUK@aol.com 
Web site;http://www.qsl.net/g3pto/index.html