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    Tips for improving performance

    I am after some tips, no not tips like "be nicer to your mother" or "a bit of lemon juice will get that stain right out"... I want tips on how to make both my Internet speed and computer speed faster. Hopefully some others will also get some useful advice from this thread, not just me...

    I think it was Jan or Jesse who commented not long ago that my connection was kinda slow... I'm sure there must be things I can do for either of these things to improve the performance and speed and who better to ask for advice on these things then my favourite helpful people here at AW ... So give me what ya got, but try not to ask me too many technical questions because I'll prolly not know what the hell you are talking about , lol, but I'll do my best....

    Luv Melinda

    #2
    Kinda slow, as in dial up slow.. or cable-but-sluggish slow?

    The solution to the first one is pretty easy.. get cable! .. or ADSL.. and make sure to stay within your monthly quota coz if you don't then you're speed can get cut back to a speed slower than dial up.. or even worse, you might get charged per MB you overuse..
    I remember alot of "web-accelerator" type software was around afew years ago and has apparently been discredited.. I'm not sure of anything reliable software around personally.. but I'm no expert... that's about as technical as I get

    Comment


      #3
      I'm on ADSL... it's an unlimited download plan so it only slows down if I go over like 20gb or something like that...

      These were the results of my latest Bandwidth test thingy in the MyAW section - USA: 408kps, 51KB/s...

      Any help is much appreciated

      Luv Melinda

      Comment


        #4
        hello.... what is this... post icon? um...

        Originally posted by Melinda View Post
        I'm on ADSL... the results of my latest Bandwidth test thingy in the MyAW section - USA: 408kps, 51KB/s...
        I'm on proper cable and am getting USA: 568kbps, 71kb/s.. not sure what happened to the Netherlands.. gone to the Bahamas apparently.. anyhoo, I'm not sure your figures are that bad for ADSL.

        But I'm no expert...

        Frontfoot
        *shmoozing Melinda before Fantasy Basketball draft*

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by Melinda View Post
          These were the results of my latest Bandwidth test thingy in the MyAW section - USA: 408kps, 51KB/s...
          Does the speed depend on the time of day? It can be affected by traffic levels. [For example, it is futile for me to try to visit comics.com before 9am here on a weekday, but no problem on Sat or Sun.]

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by Melinda View Post
            These were the results of my latest Bandwidth test thingy in the MyAW section - USA: 408kps, 51KB/s...
            From that I'd say you're one of the slower ADSL plans - probably 512kbps. The way to improve your connection speed would be to upgrade to a faster plan. Without changing your provider or modem, you could get up to 1.5Mbps - about 3 times the speed of what you're getting now. On the other hand, if you're willing to shop around and upgrade your modem, you could switch to ADSL2+ with a theoretical limit of around 24Mbps (48 times what you're getting now), though realistically you'd get around 4-6Mbps (8-12 times what you're getting now).

            Alternatively, you could sign up for Telstra's new cable offering which promises 30Mbps, though it may not be available in your area and nobody is yet sure whether they can deliver on that promise.

            I'm on ADSL2+. My most recent MyAW test was 4864kbps, 608KB/s

            Comment


              #7
              The title of this thread led me to believe that it was about improving performance in bed. Drat...

              Comment


                #8
                I heard about this survey on Australian ISPs this morning, saying people with ADSL2/2+ were happier with their speed than regular ADSL or cable, but ADSL was still the most popular.

                Comment


                  #9
                  I suggest, in descending order of importance:

                  1. Run a spy-ware scanner like Ad-Aware or Spyware Search & Destroy or both (the former is free (if you choose the personal version), the latter has a free trial) to make sure nothing's running in the background that you don't know about. Even if it isn't something evil, something could be dragging you down.

                  2. Defrag your hard drives.

                  3. If you know someone you can trust to do this: have him/her look at your task manager and see if there are any worthless processes that are running but don't need to be. A lot of programs, even Windows, launches a lot of background processes that you don't need and don't want but they start automatically every time the system boots. You can set them to be turned on manually or only when needed. This will free up a little memory and system resources. Every little thing is a drag on the system.

                  That would be a very good start.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    I have no idea what these figures mean, but I get 6824kbps and 853Kb/s (U.S) and that is using the highest possible service from my provider. However, I am splitting this with 2 other people, so it may be slower than what you could get if I had it for only myself.

                    But don't worry Melinda, I'm sure the great people here at AW will find a solution for you. They've been awesome to me.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Read Willow's post again Melinda, he says pretty much what I would say ;-) Except that going for ADSL2/2+ is prolly overkill for you. Just stick to ADSL you have and most like can handle something like 400Kb/sec (this depends partly on the modem/box which connects you computer to the phone-line but 400 should be reachable).

                      Of course more speed will cost more money so you'll have to decide how much speed YOU need. Upgrade to something like 150/180 (1500/1800kbit/sec) should be affordable. If you want to download entire NBA matches from the internet you might want to go for a higher speed, then again pay-per-view might cost the same then so carefully check (ppv is much easier).

                      Easy one; check which speed you're currently buying from your provider (prolly 512 but checking is always good).

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Originally posted by jayo View Post
                        3. If you know someone you can trust to do this: have him/her look at your task manager and see if there are any worthless processes that are running but don't need to be. A lot of programs, even Windows, launches a lot of background processes that you don't need and don't want but they start automatically every time the system boots. You can set them to be turned on manually or only when needed. This will free up a little memory and system resources. Every little thing is a drag on the system.

                        That would be a very good start.
                        I'd love to do this with my system. How can you find out what gets started automatically? I used to be able to look at autoexec.bat or config.sys and "rem" out what I didn't want, but that's a pipedream now...... TIA

                        Comment


                          #13
                          alexbee-
                          right click on your taskbar and select task manager. from task manager click on the processes tab. from here you'll see everything running foreground and background. Be careful about what processes you kill though because the process names might sound like one thing but you actually do need that process to run to make another process run correctly.

                          Your OS is Windows right?

                          Comment


                            #14
                            I was curious and clicked the Run A New Bandwidth Test button in the My AW section. A popup box comes up saying Error: Permission denied to call method XMLHttpRequest.open. Anyone know what this would mean?

                            I have a DSL connection and last measured bandwidth is 558 kbps 69 KB/s. Don't know if this is good or not but everything looks good to me right now because I was using dial-up as recently as just a few months ago.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Originally posted by Horndog15 View Post
                              I was curious and clicked the Run A New Bandwidth Test button in the My AW section. A popup box comes up saying Error: Permission denied to call method XMLHttpRequest.open. Anyone know what this would mean?

                              I have a DSL connection and last measured bandwidth is 558 kbps 69 KB/s. Don't know if this is good or not but everything looks good to me right now because I was using dial-up as recently as just a few months ago.
                              69 KB/s is at the lower end of broadband speeds but compared to dial up it is MUCH better.

                              It looks like the test was denied because your browser would not open the pop up widow the test runs in. Perhaps check your browser settings or maybe your security software is to blame.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Originally posted by alexbee View Post
                                I'd love to do this with my system. How can you find out what gets started automatically? I used to be able to look at autoexec.bat or config.sys and "rem" out what I didn't want, but that's a pipedream now...... TIA
                                Download a little freebie called StartDreck. When you run it the top section tells you the startup functions, and it makes it easy to disable them without deleting them.

                                You can go to places like LiUtitlities to find out what the different startup tasks do. If you're not sure what it does, DON'T disable it.

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Easy way to speed up a slow system would be to remove either Norton Anti Virus or McAfee and get an anti-virus scanner which is lighter on your pc. Esp. Norton is horribly heavy and intrusive.

                                  Also if you're running a purchased firewall/security product with a firewall check that your Windows Firewall is turned off.

                                  StartDreck gives a bit too much information if you're looking for StartUp information. Disable 'Registry' (3 boxes) in it's config to see less clutter. You can also download StartupCPL which installs as an extra Control Panel item, here: http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml there is a stand-alone version as-well.

                                  To be safe stick to 'Startup (User)' and 'Startup (General)'. Just DISABLE items, do NOT delete them. Reboot frequently after changing items to check the system still works ok.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    I'm confused about the whole Internet speed thing... I'm on an unlimited downloads ADSL plan and as Willow correctly pointed out, it's a 512kb plan... But what does that mean? Shouldn't I be able to download at the rate of 512kb? Whenever I download stuff the maximum for a single download I can get is about 54-57kb or if multiple downloads much slower because they will all add up to 57kb... does that sounds right?

                                    If I was to buy an external hard drive and put basically everything from my computer on to it, would that make my computer much faster? Would that improve the Internet as well?

                                    Luv Melinda

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      Originally posted by Melinda View Post
                                      If I was to buy an external hard drive and put basically everything from my computer on to it, would that make my computer much faster? Would that improve the Internet as well?
                                      No, a larger and/or faster hard disk won't have any effect on download speed, sorry. Unless it's extremely old, your existing hard drive is likely quite fast already, so if there's a bottleneck somewhere, that isn't it. As the others are noting, the problem is either in the connection itself, or some system(s) in your computer that is(are) handling data as it flows in and out of the connection -- firewall and/or virus scanner being the two most likely culprits.

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        Originally posted by Melinda View Post
                                        I'm confused about the whole Internet speed thing... I'm on an unlimited downloads ADSL plan and as Willow correctly pointed out, it's a 512kb plan... But what does that mean? Shouldn't I be able to download at the rate of 512kb? Whenever I download stuff the maximum for a single download I can get is about 54-57kb or if multiple downloads much slower because they will all add up to 57kb... does that sounds right?

                                        If I was to buy an external hard drive and put basically everything from my computer on to it, would that make my computer much faster? Would that improve the Internet as well?

                                        Luv Melinda
                                        When you're on the 512K plan, that's the upper limit. You are right, multiple simultaneous downloads can be added together to get the full download speed.

                                        Emptying your hard drive won't help either the computer speed or internet speed unless your hard drive is nearly full. To find out, press Start, click into My Computer, right click on C:, and click Properties. If free space is less than 5% of your total capacity, you can speed up by bringing free space above 5%. If free space is less than 2% of your total capacity, you'll get a significant speedup. Sometimes just cleaning your cache and emptying your recycle bin will be enough.

                                        Getting an external hard drive is a great idea... at the beginning of each month, copy (don't move) your important documents and stuff (videos and images of your favorite AW models that you just can't live without) onto the external drive. That way if your computer crashes -- assume it will -- you'll have access to your important stuff.

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          Originally posted by alexbee View Post
                                          I'd love to do this with my system. How can you find out what gets started automatically? I used to be able to look at autoexec.bat or config.sys and "rem" out what I didn't want, but that's a pipedream now...... TIA
                                          If you're using Vista, I'm not sure what the equivalent is. But on Windows XP or similar, click the START menu, then choose SETTINGS then CONTROL PANEL

                                          On CONTROL PANEL go to ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS and then run SERVICES

                                          You can't hurt anything by running the SERVICES app and looking at it.

                                          You should see a list of processes. There should be something like a NAME, a DESCRIPTION, STATUS and STARTUP TYPE. The name is the name of the "service" and the description tells you (hopefully) something about what it's supposed to do. STATUS tells you whether it's currently running. STARTUP TYPE tells you whether it starts automatically or manually (manually meaning a program actually started it, as opposed to being launched at startup).

                                          You should be able to sort these things different ways. I like sorting first by STATUS and then by NAME. I look at the things that are currently running and go down the list.

                                          Some make sense by their description. Some are confusing or won't have a description. If you google search the name of the service, you should learn more about it and whether you think it should be running or not.

                                          That's a start. You can't do any harm by looking. If you start playing around with shutting things down or changing things from AUTOMATIC to MANUAL, you ought to first set a system restore point and then begin experimenting. That way if something bad happens, you can restore your system to your last known-good configuration.

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            Originally posted by Melinda View Post
                                            Shouldn't I be able to download at the rate of 512kb? Whenever I download stuff the maximum for a single download I can get is about 54-57kb or if multiple downloads much slower because they will all add up to 57kb... does that sounds right?
                                            That's the typical confusion between bits and bytes or in this case kilobits and kilobytes.
                                            Usually Kb is used for kilobit while KB means kilobyte, see also here.

                                            One byte is usually the storage space of one single character and is today composed of 8 bits.
                                            Unfortunately the speed of data connections is expressed as kilobit per second or Kb/s (I always use Kbit to avoid confusion).

                                            Because you are on a 512 Kbit/s connection the maximum download speed you theoretically can get is 64 KB/s (512/8).
                                            Due to the needed transmission protocol the real speed is always lower, 54 - 57 KB/s is very good.

                                            If you want to get around 500 KB/s download speed, you need at least a 4 Mbit/s connection.

                                            I hope this was somehow understandable.

                                            Lxm

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              Originally posted by Luxman View Post
                                              I hope this was somehow understandable.
                                              Ohhhh, yes that was understandable Luxman! Now I get it... Damn you Optus, you tricked me into thinking the plan was awesome! Well that's just dumb, I think there might be some abuse coming their way... verbal abuse... and maybe a little physical as well, just for good measure...

                                              Ok, so with that in mind, it sounds like my Internet is running pretty much at it's peak then? So really the ONLY way I'm going to get better speed is my upgrading to a better plan (meaning more $$$), yes? *sigh* Oh well, was worth an ask... I can't complain too much, it's pretty good I suppose and we've managed to download A LOT of stuff pretty well...

                                              I still want to get an external hard drive though, I've got less than 30Gb left on a 250Gb hard drive... and new episodes have just started getting released for all my favourite shows... *sigh* If only I had more money... *damn money tree, I planted you months ago, why are you not growing?!?* lol...

                                              Thanks for all your help and advice guys!

                                              Luv Melinda

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                Originally posted by Melinda View Post
                                                Ok, so with that in mind, it sounds like my Internet is running pretty much at it's peak then?
                                                The only way to know that for sure is you looking up your Internet (Service) Provider contract. That will tell you you what type of connection and speed you're paying for. What you're looking for on the contract is something like "512/128" where the first number is what you can DOWNload (pull towards you) and the other what you can UPload (posting pictures and such). The UP is always lower then DOWN (that is why it is called Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line ;-)

                                                Hm.. had a look at T&B Australia prices and Aus. is expensive for adsl isn't it? Could be we in Europe are a bit spoiled though.

                                                Do keep in mind WHAT you want to do with more speed. Specifically, do you want to download MORE or just FASTER. If you want to download MORE you will need a higher download-limit (traffic quota). Do note that at least T&B offers free downloading in off-peak hours, a download manager program can handle that for you. Then again if you're going to download stuff in off-peak hours when you're likely asleep you're not waiting for it anyway.. so no need for higher speed

                                                If your provider uses more or less the same price-structure you could consider moving to a higher speed and a lower download limit. Then have all the AW large downloads done via a download manager at off-peak (T&B offers 40GB free on those hours). Just an idea.

                                                Or get a really well paying teacher position come januari

                                                Oh yes, do check how over-quota traffic is handled; (a) slowdown of your connection, or (b) billing of over-quota used. Option (b) is far more risky for obvious reasons, you do need to be aware of it.

                                                Btw. this

                                                Originally posted by Melinda
                                                it's an unlimited download plan so it only slows down if I go over like 20gb
                                                Obviously is not unlimited It's a lot of data for internet browsing for sure, but it's NOT unlimited.

                                                Originally posted by Melinda
                                                I still want to get an external hard drive though, I've got less than 30Gb left on a 250Gb hard drive... and new episodes have just started getting released for all my favourite shows...
                                                An external drive is not a permanent solution to a full harddrive. You need to watch the stuff you download and either delete it or burn it to dvd or something. If you just keep storing it, ALL hard-drives you could possibly buy will eventually be full.

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  Originally posted by fransAW View Post
                                                  An external drive is not a permanent solution to a full harddrive. You need to watch the stuff you download and either delete it or burn it to dvd or something. If you just keep storing it, ALL hard-drives you could possibly buy will eventually be full.
                                                  Listen to Uncle Frans, Melinda. I made this mistake and now have 4 external drives with all sorts of shit on it (porn and music, mostly) that I'll never have enough time to look at or listen to. Clean out that 250GB monster -- delete those episodes that you've already looked at and will problably not look at again... maybe burn them to CD or DVD before you delete them.

                                                  His question about what you'd do with more speed is a good one. Maybe instead of a more expensive plan you should get a better download manager... one where you can set up your downloads before you go to sleep and let them run overnight. There are free ones out there but for simplicity and ease of setup and use I'd recommend Net Vampire (netvampire.com) which only costs Aus$24 -- I like that I can just drag the download link to a basket and it starts downloading. Others are Getright (getright.com) which also costs, and Leechget (leechget.net) which is free (no drag-to-download, and in the free version you can only download one file at a time).

                                                  Comment


                                                    #26
                                                    Originally posted by fransAW View Post
                                                    Do keep in mind WHAT you want to do with more speed. Specifically, do you want to download MORE or just FASTER. If you want to download MORE you will need a higher download-limit (traffic quota). Do note that at least T&B offers free downloading in off-peak hours, a download manager program can handle that for you. Then again if you're going to download stuff in off-peak hours when you're likely asleep you're not waiting for it anyway.. so no need for higher speed...
                                                    Frans I do have unlimited downloads, I could download 1000Gb each month if I wanted to (not that I have the capacity to though, lol!), as I said, I think after about 20gb the speed just slows down a little bit, but I can keep downloading and there's never an extra fees... I am definitely not dumb enough to fall for that little trick!

                                                    I already have a download manager and also a downloading program (I'm a Morpheus girl, hehe) and so they do the job nicely for me and I leave these on at night if I've got lots of things I want to download...

                                                    So basically I'm just looking for extra quickness, like browsing web pages and general stuff like that... THAT'S what I meant when I said tips for improving performance... But I think from all the replies it appears that the only way I will get that extra quickness for general browsing is by upgrading to a plan with a higher speed *sigh* which will cost more... oh well, it was worth an ask, thanks guys!

                                                    Luv Melinda

                                                    Comment


                                                      #27
                                                      Originally posted by Melinda View Post
                                                      Frans I do have unlimited downloads, I could download 1000Gb each month if I wanted to ...
                                                      If your service is anything like mine here in London UK if you download that much the ISP sends you a nasty letter telling you you are abusing the service.

                                                      They may say unlimited but they don't really mean it.


                                                      L

                                                      Comment


                                                        #28
                                                        Originally posted by Lesley View Post
                                                        If your service is anything like mine here in London UK if you download that much the ISP sends you a nasty letter telling you you are abusing the service.
                                                        Really? Well my ISP wouldn't want to try any of that nasty letter rubbish on me! Seriously, they'd soon find out the real meaning of the word abuse! I think I learnt from my Dad how to put people like that in their place... You'd be surprised how many people back down when you use the right choice of words....

                                                        Luv Melinda

                                                        Comment


                                                          #29
                                                          Originally posted by Melinda View Post
                                                          So basically I'm just looking for extra quickness, like browsing web pages and general stuff like that... THAT'S what I meant when I said tips for improving performance... But I think from all the replies it appears that the only way I will get that extra quickness for general browsing is by upgrading to a plan with a higher speed *sigh* which will cost more... oh well, it was worth an ask, thanks guys!
                                                          Actually, the Morpheus thing gives me an idea; check your network/bandwidth settings in that program. Read here: http://wiki.morpheus.com/~wiki/wiki/...at_can_I_do.3F how to do that.

                                                          Specifically you should know that for every package of data you DOWNload (towards you) you send a 'I got it, send the next one' packet back to the sender (so called ACK packet). The sender will wait for that ACK before sending the next packet. This is why downloading will be very slow if you are UPloading (sending stuff) something at your maximum upload speed.

                                                          If you really have a 512/512 sub (check your contract/plan) there's little to gain doing the above. If you however have a 1500/512 (down/up) and only get 512 down it's worth looking into.

                                                          Comment


                                                            #30
                                                            Good thinking frans, but that's not a problem either... I only use Morpheus at night when I'm in bed, never during day while I'm using the puter...

                                                            I checked my plan and all it says is "the speed of your plan is 512kbps"...

                                                            Luv Melinda

                                                            Comment

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