$42.95 for dial-up speeds?!?!

by ikjadoon Nov 2, 2005 11:13AM PST

Hi, I have the Bellsouth FastAcess DSL Extreme 3.0Mbps. I pay a hefty price for this, and I'm just not getting results. The speeds are worse than dial-up. For example Tiger Direct takes up to a minute and half. I've ran virus scans, Online troubleshooting, spyware, adware, switching browsers, clearing internet settings, resetting router, resetting modem, restatring computer, unplugging and plugging in about 4 different ethernet cables. Could it the wireless internet? This computer is pretty fast with a P4 2.8Ghz and 1GB PC-3200 with a GeForce 4 Ti 4600 and tons of HD space.. What could be causing this? I've taken speed tests, with CNET's showing my speed at a worthless 700k... Faster than dial-up, but no where near 3.0. I know getting 3.0 will proably never happen, but come on! At least give me 1.5Mbps.. I ping about 60ish on games. Should I just call and complain? I've tried other speed test site, but for some reason they can never work, from Yahoo! to Broadband Reports. They always seem to freeze on the Upload Tests. I think it may be the Anti-Virus and Firewall. Could that be it?
-Ibrahim

Discussion is locked

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What firewall?

by Coryphaeus Nov 2, 2005 9:42PM PST

When I upgraded to free Zone Alarm 5.x from 4.x my cable speed dropped to half. It is a known bug in ZA. I went back to 4.

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OneCare Beta

by ikjadoon Nov 3, 2005 12:18AM PST

New Window's thing... I'm going to trash it tonight, to see if anything gets better. What other firewalls do you reccommend?

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Firewall. . .

by Coryphaeus Nov 3, 2005 7:39PM PST

I recommend Zone Alarm free. Simple, it does two things. It monitors inbound and outbound traffic.

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Checked, it works!

by ikjadoon Nov 4, 2005 8:04AM PST

Thanks alot! I turned off that resource hog.. I off to go get ZoneAlarm right now! Thanks!
-Ibrahim

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Another choice

by chuckieu Nov 5, 2005 3:44AM PST

is Sygate Personal Firewall (also free). I used to use Zone Alarm, switched to Sygate, and never went back. Have
had none of the problems that have started showing up in
Zone Alarm. Have used on XP and 98se (still on laptop).
chuck http://www.simtel.com/product.download.mirrors.php?id=53687

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Your OS is not mentioned

by Steven Haninger Nov 5, 2005 9:01AM PST

If you have XP, you may ignore the rest of this message. If Win98, it does not handle broadband well with it's default ''RWIN'' value. It's a registry setting you can change manually or use a free utility to do so.

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XP, yes

by ikjadoon Nov 6, 2005 6:37AM PST

Yeah, I have XP. Thanks for the FireWall idea!
-Ibrahim
P.S. I get about 1.7Mbps while I'm paying for 3.0Mbps... They do say that they do not gurantee any speed... That means I'm paying another 10 bucks for only a .2MBps increase...
-Ibrahim

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this sometimes will work...

by linkit Nov 8, 2005 1:23PM PST

If using a router, update its firmware to latest version.

Call ISP to see if they can do anything about it. Some ISP's end up replacing a particular modem model to enable the high speeds.

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I think I got it.

by ikjadoon Nov 9, 2005 5:14AM PST

I checked with Bellsouth, they said they didn't have a newer one out, and Linksys just made me lower my MTU thing. Absolutely no idea what that did. BUT, I logged into Safe Mode to remove some bad software, when I saw my speed. 2.8Mbps/320Kbps!! I have no idea how that happened, and tried a few sites. Is there anyway to like mimic the settings in Safe Mode, to the real desktop? Thanks!!
-Ibrahim

P.S. No more blank web pages! (in safe mode, anyways)

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hmmm...

by linkit Nov 9, 2005 1:00PM PST

Did you scan for viruses AND spyware in Safe Mode?

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yeah....

by ikjadoon Nov 10, 2005 12:18PM PST

I tried that, came up same: nada. Thx, though.

$42.95 for dial-up speeds?!?!

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