OT: dial-up "response"

[Robert Baer]

Martin Brown wrote:

Robert Baer wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:

Robert Baer wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:

Robert Baer wrote:

a7yvm109gf5d1@netzero.com wrote:

On Apr 4, 9:46 pm, Robert Baer <robertb...@localnet.com> wrote:

Trying to download something larger than 2Meg; used to be
possible
but recently not.
Observtions: short 100-300mSec burst or bursts incoming
followed by
1-20sec no data transfer; repeats until line drops out for no
apparent
reason.
Solutions other than unobtainable high speed connection?




Can you query the modem for line quality? It might tell you
something.



Good question; what are the Hayes protocol commands for that?



RTFM. Look at the FAQs for the modem groups.

The delay is caused by your modem spitting out bytes of
compressible material at your computer faster than the computer can
cope. The overrun generates a cascade failure whereby data is lost,
the ISP backs off and retries exponentially until you drop the
connection. Line noise can make the situation even worse if speed
renegotiation occurs as well.

Without the &V1 diagnostics it is a stab in the dark. And even with
them it is necessary to know the chipset and revision level. Ask in
the modem groups - there must be some other poor souls there still
on dialup.

Regards,
Martin Brown


It is only recently that i have has this problem and i have
changed nothing.
My COM1 port is configured to 115Kbaud.



Good heavens and old style COM1 port at 115k and an external modem.
That *can* be maxed out with a decent V.90 connection and some types
of web HTML (or certain types of text file). Internal modems have
better buffering and these days are very cheap standard items.

What RS232 chipset, what buffering enabled and what driver?

Both facts argue that the problem is not due to "modem spitting
out bytes of compressible material at your computer faster than the
computer can cope".



It could also be a retrain problem. But you would be much better off
asking these questions in a US modem group.

Regards,
Martin Brown


chipset?? it is part of an ASIC on the motherboard (by ASUS).
Driver is most recent from US Robotics.


I am trying to establish just how prehistoric your setup is. You appear
determined not to provide enough information to make diagnosis easy.
** OK; then the "chipset" is courtesy of ASUS M2N-MX SE PLUS motherboard.

Is that what you were looking for?

BUT...
*All* of it worked for years until recently (went bad around April 1).


There is a possibility that you have a virus that is saturating your
limited bandwidth connection. Do you have current AV and fully patched
OS? Also possible your ISP finally worked out how to enable compression.
* Before these *recent* problems, my modem has done compression so at

times i saw up to 80Kby rates for extended periods of time - over a
45Kby line.

You could always move to ISDN if you are stuck on dialup for the
forseeable future. That gives you 64k per line (128k bonded) of raw data
and more with compression - a worthwhile improvement over any 56k modem.
* well, if i was rich enough, i could use a T-1 line...

....or "blue box" (aka two copper pair to anywhere you can afford at $$$
per quarter mile).

One thing you could try is disabling fall forward on the modem to see if
it is a line noise related speed negotiation problem or alternatively
force a connection at a more conservative data rate. Not sure how much
tweaking of the modem S registers is allowed in the US region.
* No restrictions on S registers.

Regards,
Martin Brown
BTW, a different ISP solved the problems.

So, it seems localnet.com has problems on their end...

 

[Paul E. Schoen]

"Robert Baer" <robertbaer@localnet.com> wrote in message
news:Hr2dnfNz3sL-FkbUnZ2dnUVZ_vadnZ2d@posted.localnet...

Paul E. Schoen wrote:
"Robert Baer" <robertbaer@localnet.com> wrote in message
news:n8OdnRM6QsSkekfUnZ2dnUVZ_s6dnZ2d@posted.localnet...

chipset?? it is part of an ASIC on the motherboard (by ASUS).
Driver is most recent from US Robotics.
BUT...
*All* of it worked for years until recently (went bad around April 1).


Maybe you got the worm...

Paul
I *finally* was able to get another ISP on a free trial basis....
....WORKS FINE!
..so it seems that localnet.com has problems on their end...

I had that with my ISP, smart.net, where I was getting baud rates as low as
2400.

Paul

 

[Martin Brown]

Robert Baer wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:

Robert Baer wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:

Good heavens and old style COM1 port at 115k and an external modem.
That *can* be maxed out with a decent V.90 connection and some types
of web HTML (or certain types of text file). Internal modems have
better buffering and these days are very cheap standard items.

What RS232 chipset, what buffering enabled and what driver?

Both facts argue that the problem is not due to "modem spitting
out bytes of compressible material at your computer faster than the
computer can cope".

It could also be a retrain problem. But you would be much better off
asking these questions in a US modem group.

chipset?? it is part of an ASIC on the motherboard (by ASUS).
Driver is most recent from US Robotics.

I am trying to establish just how prehistoric your setup is. You
appear determined not to provide enough information to make diagnosis
easy.
** OK; then the "chipset" is courtesy of ASUS M2N-MX SE PLUS motherboard.
Is that what you were looking for?

That would do. If you RTFM it will tell you what buffering parameters
are available. You still haven't said what modem.

You should also check your ISP for announcements of improvements or new
modems coming onstream. Support can sometimes provide useful answers
(though not often I grant you). One of my clients ISPs "improved" their
service on 1st April too and all Perl scripts suddenly stopped working.

BUT...
*All* of it worked for years until recently (went bad around April 1).

There is a possibility that you have a virus that is saturating your
limited bandwidth connection. Do you have current AV and fully patched
OS? Also possible your ISP finally worked out how to enable compression.
* Before these *recent* problems, my modem has done compression so at
times i saw up to 80Kby rates for extended periods of time - over a
45Kby line.

That isn't very good at all. You should be able to get sustained rates
on mostly text HTML webpages and newsheaders that are roughly twice the
connect rate. I have some old notes from 2001 on 56k Flex vs V90 when
they were still experimental and before broadband was on my exchange.

http://www.nezumi.demon.co.uk/hardware/56k/56k.htm

A rough rule of thumb for V90 was that a 50k connection will max out a
115k2 baud serial link on some HTML content. If you are stuck on dialup
then reading the modem FAQs and following their advice is worthwhile.
You would almost certainly be better off with a decent internal modem.

I doubt if there are many people here still using dialup (or for that
matter basic rate ADSL).

You could always move to ISDN if you are stuck on dialup for the
forseeable future. That gives you 64k per line (128k bonded) of raw
data and more with compression - a worthwhile improvement over any 56k
modem.
* well, if i was rich enough, i could use a T-1 line...
...or "blue box" (aka two copper pair to anywhere you can afford at $$$
per quarter mile).

ISDN isn't that much more expensive than dialup and you have two
independent phone lines as a bonus - for small business use it is the
least bad option if broadband is unavailable.

One thing you could try is disabling fall forward on the modem to see
if it is a line noise related speed negotiation problem or
alternatively force a connection at a more conservative data rate. Not
sure how much tweaking of the modem S registers is allowed in the US
region.
* No restrictions on S registers.

You are clueless. You may be able to set any S register without getting
an error message, but the modem firmware will only allow changes that
are permitted by the telco rules in your particular territory.

Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Michael]

Robert Baer wrote:

Trying to download something larger than 2Meg; used to be possible
but recently not.
Observtions: short 100-300mSec burst or bursts incoming followed by
1-20sec no data transfer; repeats until line drops out for no apparent
reason.
Solutions other than unobtainable high speed connection?

I can't get (all of) a file that size- or larger - either. Yep, used to be able to. Dunno
when/what things changed but I know my 'puter/OS/browser did not change. I first noticed the
problem during Jan 2009. Over about two weeks I D/L many PDFs from two different sites, typiclly
around 800kB and 1.4MB, but some >2MB also. The ones near 1MB were OK but the big ones were
probably truncated. I noticed that the D/L speed up to warp speed near the end. Adobe reader and
GhostScript said they were damaged beyound repair.

You have Worldnet dialup too?
Knowing that someone else has noticed is a good sanity check.

---
Michael