Author Topic: BBS Woes (Read 374 times)

Nefarious · « **on:** July 14, 2004, 02:37:35 PM »

Hey Skuzzy,

Im on MSN with a standard DialUp Connection. Back when the Ruhr scenario was being run, the very final frame I logged on and my internet connection speed usually stayed pretty constant and avereged 49 to 50Kbps, but to my suprise I logged on at 33Kbps.

Frustrated, I tried everything besides calling the phone company to check the lines. Besides, it really didnt change anything besides being slower. AH2 worked fine, no real change there.

It stayed like this since the final frame of Ruhr, which was a while ago, Six or Seven Months I beleive. Starting the other week, It was getting worse 19.2 was the most I could get for a few days.

Then we got drilled with a Severe Thunderstorm, I log on last night at 49Kbps, but the Ah Message board is really slow, slower than when I was running at half speed. The Banner, the Aces High Logo and all the options come up, but the Forum Links, and categories and threads take upwards to 5 minutes load. My Internet Icon blinks with activity, but my Windows Icon that moves when the page is loading, has stopped moving. The Page says it is done loading, and then 5 minutes later the forums or threads finally pop up.

Anything I can do to fix this problem, because it makes reading the board into a frustrating bore.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #1 on:** July 14, 2004, 04:46:22 PM »

Sounds like you are getting a lot of modem retrains. That happens when the bit error rate on the connection is high, which causes the modem to pause (2 seconds minimum) and renegotiate the speed with the remote terminal server.

At lower speeds these retrains occur less so you could actually end up with a better connection.

The fact your connection speed is varying so much is a clue that something is not right. The modem may be going bad. The phone company may have reloaded some software which altered the characteristics of the switch (usually the line levels shift around when they do this) and caused the modem speed swings.

You can have the telephone company do a line test, telling them you are having modem/FAX connection issues. They will never find anything wrong, but it suddenly gets better.
This assumes the modem is not going out.

Nefarious · « **Reply #2 on:** July 15, 2004, 03:45:54 AM »

Thanks Skuzzy.

This morning, I logged on at 50.6, the fastest I've been logged on for months. When I stopped by to check this thread, the forums loaded up fine.

Maybe it has something to do with the the time I log on at?

Well, Off to work!

Nefarious · « **Reply #3 on:** July 15, 2004, 12:23:14 PM »

Back from work, And it's doing it again, I'm connected at 50.6, but the forums are taking forever to load.

It's not a huge problem, just frustrating. Especially when it takes 5 to 10 minutes to read one thread.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #4 on:** July 15, 2004, 01:00:57 PM »

Hey Nef, just a hunch, but take a peek at the size of the cache folder for Internet Explorer. If it is over 20MB, then you re probably thrashing about quite a bit.
Purge it and set the size to 20MB and see if it helps.

Nefarious · « **Reply #5 on:** July 15, 2004, 06:09:45 PM »

Will do.

Nefarious · « **Reply #6 on:** July 16, 2004, 01:30:00 PM »

It seems it has made it a lot better.

Thanks Skuzzy.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #7 on:** July 16, 2004, 01:34:21 PM »

Good to hear. I'll never understand why MS defaults the temp/cache size to such a huge value.

One of the side-effects of reducing IE's cache folder size is your file system will take much longer to get badly fragmented.