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How to speed up your Internet connection.
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Myth 7: Windows is already perfectly configured for a fast internet connection.
Fact: There are many things you can do to speed up your connection Here is a few:
Fine Tuning Windows
Windows is not typically configured for fast Internet access using a modem. It is optimized for an Ethernet card. This translates into poorer performance for you. Let's go over a few steps on what you can do to increase your performance. Using SpeedTec , InternetTweak, and TweakDUN you can optimize your connection. These programs modify your registry, so use them at your own risk.
To use these programs to optimize your Registry, you must adjust at least one of the four settings below.
MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit)
MTU is an IP network setting known in the Windows Registry as MaxMTU. This setting dictates how big your packets are. Usually the standard packet setting should be 576. ISP?s say that the smaller the packets the better chance that data can get through with out being corrupted.
It's easy to change the MTU on your PC, and you can do it without using the programs recommended here or going through the Registry editor.
1. Right-click the Network Neighborhood icon on your Windows 98 desktop and select Properties.
2. Select the Configuration tab and highlight Dial-Up Adapter in the Network Components pane. Click the Properties button below the pane.
3. Select the Advanced tab and highlight IP Packet Size. In the Value pane, select Large for 1,500 bytes or Small for 576 bytes. Click OK and restart your computer.
4. Test your connection at MSN Computing Central.
MSS (Maximum Segment Size)
The maximum segment size is a value that two Internet hosts use to negotiate the size of the MTU they will use to exchange data. It should be set at a value of 40 less than the MTU size (or 536 on a standard dial-up line). A correctly set MSS ensures that packets are transmitted properly.
RWin (Default Receive Window)
This IP network setting (DefaultRcvWindows) is the amount of data that your computer can receive before it has to send an acknowledgment to the host. The default setting in Windows 98 is 8,192 bytes; SpeedTec recommends a setting of 16 times MSS (23,360 bytes if you're at an MSS of 1,460 bytes); TweakDUN and InternetTweak both recommend a multiple of 4. Go ahead and experiment to find out what is best for you.
TTL (Time to Live)
This network setting establishes the number of hops across servers that a data packet can take before it expires. The Windows 98 default is 128, which is also recommended by SpeedTec. TweakDUN and InternetTweak suggest 64.
You can use all these programs we just suggested for you. You also can do it by hand.
Hand-Edit Your Registry Settings
You can choose to do things the hard way. Go into your Windows 95 Registry and edit them yourself. This is certainly not for beginners and we are warning you. Go at your own risk.
1. Back up your Registry. Refer to the second commandment of Registry editing.
2. In Windows 98, click the Start button and select Run. Type regedit, and click OK.
3. Find the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\Root\Net. Below it is a series of numbered subkeys (0000, 0001, 0002, and so on). Highlight each numbered subkey in turn until you find the value DeviceDesc equal to Dial-Up Adapter.
4. Now drop another subkey level to Bindings. Highlight that subkey and look for a string that begins with MSTCP. It will be followed by a four-digit number (for example, MSTCP\0000). Write down the number.
5. Find the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\Network\MSTCP and highlight the subkey with the four-digit number in Step 4. Look for the Driver value, which will be equal to NetTrans\0000 (or 0001, and so on). Note that four-digit number for the next step.
6. Drop down to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\NetTrans, and highlight the subkey that shares the four-digit number from step 5. Right-click and choose New/String Value. Name the string value MaxMTU. Right-click the value, choose Modify, and set the value to 1500. Next, add a string value named MaxMSS. Set it to 1460.
7. Exit the Registry. Restart your computer.
You're not finished yet, but you shouldn't make many changes to the Registry without testing the system. Restart your system now. If it restarts smoothly, proceed to the next step. If not, restore the old settings from your backup and try again, if you dare.
1. Back up your Registry under yet another name, different from the one before.
2. Click the Start button and select Run. Type regedit and click OK.
3. Click HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\MSTCP.
4. Right-click a blank space in the right-hand pane and select New/String Value. Name the string DefaultRcvWindow. Right-click the DefaultRcvWindow string and select Modify. Enter the Value data as 5840 or 8760 (four or six times the MaxMSS value).
5. Right-click a blank space in the right-hand pane and select New/String Value. Name the string DefaultTTL. Right-click the DefaultTTL string and enter the Value data as 128.
6. Click the Registry menu and select Exit.
7. Restart Windows.
Myth 8: Using the domain name is always faster that using the IP.
Fact: True and false. True for the point that it is easy to remember. False because it takes your browser longer to locate the IP address.
What Do I Suggest? Create an IP List!
The Internet is based on numbers, IP numbers. These have existed long before names ever surfaced. Names are simply for our convenience. When you put say ?Yahoo.com? in the browser, it has to go to the Domain Name Server or DNS for short and fine this IP, then it starts downloading the page. This takes time.
To get around it, I suggest keeping your own DNS database. Start a text file with the numbers instead of the names. There is no DNS resolution therefore it can speed up your Internet time.
The easiest way to collect and cache those IP addresses is to download SpeedTec or TweakDUN. Their button-driven interfaces let you amass a hosts file without typing anything. Both programs are stable, inexpensive, and a snap to install and use.
You can also do this by hand by:
1. In Windows 98, click the Start button and select Run. Type command.
2. In the Open window, type ping, followed by a site's name (for example, ping cnet.com).
You should find a number in this format 000.000.000.000. These numbers symbolize the format only, not what it will actually be. To save these numbers do the following:
1. In Windows 98, click the Start button and select Programs/Accessories/Notepad.
2. Type the IP address you just copied into the text file and follow it with a space and the domain name (for example, 216.200.247.133 cnet.com).
3. Under the File menu, select Save and save the file in your Windows folder as hosts (not hosts.txt).
Be sure to label each number so that you know what is what.
Myth 9: It does not matter what my homepage is.
Fact: It does matter. Usually when browsers are installed they like to make the homepage their home site. Like Microsoft Internet Explorer uses http://www.msn.com. This may be all fine and dandy but it takes time out of your precious day to load every time you load a browser. 99% of the time you don?t want to look at that site anyway. Plus it takes up your bandwidth and your processor gets used loading it.
Here is how to get rid of those nasty startup pages:
To load a blank page in Netscape Communicator 4.x:
1. Under the Edit menu, choose Preferences/Navigator.
2. Under Navigator Starts With, select Blank Page.
In Navigator 3.x:
1. Under the Options menu, select General Preferences and choose the Appearance tab.
2. Under Browser Starts With, select Blank Page.
In Internet Explorer 5:
1. Under the Tools menu, click Internet Options and select the General tab.
2. In the Home Page dialog box, click Use Blank. The next time you open your browser, it will open the blank page file (about:blank).
In Internet Explorer 4:
1. Under the View menu, select Options and choose the General tab.
2. In the Home Page dialog box, click Use Blank. The next time you open your browser, it |
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