steppenwolf Posted February 28, 2003 Share Posted February 28, 2003 As I am involved in IT, I should know the answer to this but I don't Starting about 4 weeks ago, my Internet access has been dogged by a recurring theme - from time to time, whilst browsing, I hit on a hyperlink ( including but not limited to this site ) and absolutely nothing happens for up to 50 seconds ( although it seems much longer than that! ) and then the data starts streaming in. The two 'monitor' icons on my task bar remain defiantly off indicating no traffic in either direction during this time. This is making browsing the Internet almost too much of a chore. My software system comprises W98 SE and Internet Explorer 6.0. I have an internal V90 Modem ( and have even changed that to a totally different make to try and rectify the problem ). My ISP is BTConnect ( please don't suggest I change it because I have been using it successfully for months! ). I have deleted all the temp files and most of the cookies - no change. I have re-installed IE 6.0 on top of itself - no change. I have run IE 6.0 Repair - no change. This is driving me up the wall - errrr, no change. Any advice gratefully received. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted February 28, 2003 Share Posted February 28, 2003 get broadband mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studbuckle Posted February 28, 2003 Share Posted February 28, 2003 Hate to say it but I think you can point the finger at BT. The use a series of Proxy's and I have found that most of the anytime isp's suffer from this. Under the connections tab and properties for your BT dial up in IE have you got any of the 'auto' settings boxes ticked? You could also manually specify one of the Proxy's if you can find the IP address and force it to use that one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minghis Posted February 28, 2003 Share Posted February 28, 2003 It's not just you, I'm having the same problem and have been for some time. It even happens on my new PC, and I was expecting it to be at least a bit faster than the old one. Some sites, such as the ITV F1 site are so slow I give up. It seems to have got worse over the last few months, why I don't know. I have ordered broadband and it'll be up and running next week, I did this out of frustration at everything being so slow. Maybe it's the ISP's way of getting us to part with more money, give us problems like this and we'll all order broadband at £20 a month! Minghis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steppenwolf Posted February 28, 2003 Author Share Posted February 28, 2003 get broadband Don't get me started Broadband is not available where I live through 'lack of interest'! However, ask anyone where I live and they all want it. Under the connections tab and properties for your BT dial up in IE have you got any of the 'auto' settings boxes ticked? No, they are all unticked. You could also manually specify one of the Proxy's if you can find the IP address and force it to use that one Assuming that I could get the IP address I am not sure how that would assist as I would still be using one of their proxy servers? I have just removed IE 6.0 and reverted to IE 5.0 which made no difference so I have re-loaded IE 6.0 so I tend to agree with you that the fault is most likely external to my system. Is there an ISP who does not work this way? I also have a Compuserve and a Freeserve account so I may do a test or two with these. Any more suggestions appreciated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westy Posted February 28, 2003 Share Posted February 28, 2003 Find out where the delay is first, your end or you're ISP. When you get this next time run a tracert (pathping for 2k/XP) to its dns address for example: tracert wscc.ggr.net pathping Wscc.ggr.net This will give you the routes its going through and hopefully you’re see where the 50 second delay is being caused from. My bet it doesn’t even reach BT’s DNS server until after the delay….. I’d also check exactly what settings you are getting down from your ISP under WINIPCFG and make sure they tally up to what they say you should get on their support pages, in particular the primary and secondary DNS Servers. A token reg clean wouldn’t go a miss as well. Also Check your dialup properties and make sure that the following are disabled (though they are more known for delaying authentication rather than post authentication surfing) Log on to a network Netbeui IPX/SPX Westy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studbuckle Posted February 28, 2003 Share Posted February 28, 2003 both compuserve and freeserve use Pol.co.uk as their providor and the same problem occurs. I found that specifying a single proxy works as your browser is not asking their proxy farm for a response and I always thought this was were the problem lay. I've just moved back to dial up from broadband due to relcocation to the sticks and i've yet to do this set up. You can even specify a non isp web cache and that can work a lot better. I didn't say this but you can use one of the Janet web cache's (University network) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minghis Posted February 28, 2003 Share Posted February 28, 2003 Have you checked your connection speed - mine is averaging 45.2kbps, but sometimes I get a lot lower, if I do I simply disconnect and reconnect until I get a higher one. When I mentioned broadband to the man in PC world, he said that he couldn't get it where he lived, but referred to a situation where if 20 or so people agree to have it, BT must provide it? May be worth finding out. There is a good place here, if you look down the menus on the left it offers advice on how to get the best out a 56k modem, although to be fair I don't think it'll help solve the overall problem of erratic / slow connections. I also heard once that if you phone BT and ask nicely, they can 'tweak' your line and this'll help with connection speeds. Minghis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studbuckle Posted February 28, 2003 Share Posted February 28, 2003 Also, if Westy's tracert doesn't show up the delay then you can be certain it's only on port 80 traffic and therefore finger pointing back at the proxy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westy Posted February 28, 2003 Share Posted February 28, 2003 I often run an adware removal program as well nowadays: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/ Minghis, afraid the 20 people rule is not true. You can petition BT though, for example if you live in a village get everyone to go on the BT site and register their interest in the product. If you bug them enough you may get somewhere, particularly if you have a large school nearby (government want them online with broadband). Connection speed will depend on where your visiting so when you disconnect and it seems quicker next time it normally means they have different traffic levels at the time of trying again Also how many people on street are on the file sharing programs 24/7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Albert Posted February 28, 2003 Share Posted February 28, 2003 Stepps I've tried to keep this at a level that I and others understand so if you feel you're sucking eggs, sorry! Assuming you've checked previous suggestions and you don't have kids downloading IRC apps, Kazaa, WinMx and other file sharing apps and other similar resource grabbing memory resident applications (kill them, the kids I mean ). Have you loaded any new software in the last month? If so uninstall it (them, one by one) and see if the problem goes away. When the pause occurs, is there any disk activity?, if so a. How much free disk space have you got? If you've less than 5 times your memory size get some more (delete something if you can't increase it). b. How fragmented is your disk, if you've not de-fragged it in the last 6 months/years, do it. c. How big is your swap file?, is it set to auto size? To prove whether your ISP has changed something/is the problem (and BT are a problem see here for my views) get a free trial with another one (don't use AOL) and see if the problem goes away If you still have no joy buy a Mac (just kidding Bill) PS In my company we routinely re-build (wipe clean and re-install everything) all Windows desktop/laptops regularly, say every 3 months, Windows processes/manages lots of lists and they only ever get longer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterg Posted February 28, 2003 Share Posted February 28, 2003 Steve, in case you want to do a comparison with my dial up, this is what I currently get from a tracert on my 46.6 connection using Plusnet as my ISP (running WinXP and IE6) Tracing route to wscc.ggr.net [193.133.97.1] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 1639 ms 1890 ms 1595 ms nac0431987-plusnet-c1-hg2.mdip.bt.net [194.74.71 .170] 2 1648 ms 1583 ms 1265 ms 192.168.254.4 3 1349 ms 1319 ms 1535 ms 192.168.253.6 4 1631 ms 1325 ms 1331 ms vlan603.rhogan1.core.quay.plus.net [212.159.4.13 ] 5 1643 ms 1607 ms 1331 ms bhuna.core.plus.net [212.159.15.253] 6 1403 ms 1589 ms 1535 ms atm.core.telehouse.plus.net [212.159.1.66] 7 1499 ms 1601 ms 1350 ms lon1-10.nildram.net [213.208.106.89] 8 1565 ms 1049 ms 1338 ms lon1-9.nildram.net [195.149.20.130] 9 1649 ms 1259 ms 1535 ms ge3-0.br1.lnd6.gbb.uk.uu.net [195.66.224.16] 10 1655 ms 1265 ms 1313 ms srp4-0.cr1.lnd6.uk.gbb.uu.net [158.43.194.233] 11 1625 ms 1583 ms 1253 ms pos4-0-0.cr1.brs1.gbb.uk.uu.net [158.43.254.181] 12 1625 ms 1613 ms 1523 ms fe4-0-0.gw3.brs1.gbb.uk.uu.net [158.43.145.69] 13 1631 ms 1583 ms 1595 ms 158.43.24.14 14 1631 ms 1787 ms 1595 ms romulus.ggr.net [193.133.97.1] Trace complete. FWIW - BT set 'trigger' figures where a certain number of people have to register a desire for Broadband in a given area before they will even consider upgrading the local exchange and even then they won't do it unless 80% of these actually convert to definite orders - our village has not had enough interest to even set a trigger yet but another area about 10 miles away has a trigger level set to 450 in a village with probably only 700 houses we have three schools within a miles radius of us so why haven't the government forced BT to install it for their sake?......because they don't give a toss that's why!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westy Posted February 28, 2003 Share Posted February 28, 2003 why not write to your MP about it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterg Posted February 28, 2003 Share Posted February 28, 2003 why not write to your MP about it? been there, done that but he's a Tory (not a Tony) so has as much clout as a chocolate hammer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minghis Posted February 28, 2003 Share Posted February 28, 2003 At least I now know that the man in PC world wasn't lying to me, if a certain amount of people agree to have it, BT must provide it. This is confirmed by your 'trigger' comment. So there is hope...... Minghis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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