TweakHomePC

TIME-OUTS      Advanced Users

"Could not connect to ... "

Sometime, when trying to connect to a Web site, that connection attempt 'times-out' due to the slowness of response and you get a "Could not connect to ... ".

Advanced Users can prevent the time-out with a Registry alteration.

If you frequently encounter this problem, and wish to wait for the connection then this will cure the problem. It will apply to ALL sites, though you will still have the option of clicking the Stop button. THPC is too busy(!) to use this tweak but testing confirms that it works.

• First Backup the Registry

• Run RegEdit and navigate to:
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \System \CurrentControlSet \Services \Class \Net

• In the left pane, locate the 0000 Key (or 0001, 0002, or 0003) that represents your modem

• Under that Key, locate the Value name called SLOWNET (right pane)

• Right-click on SLOWNET, select Modify, and make Value data = 00 (two zeros) (default=01)

• Close RegEdit, and reboot.

[top of page]

MAXSOCKETS      Advanced Users

Maximum Windows Sockets

Depending on your installation or upgrades, the maximum Sockets allocation may be set too low (at a default of 256).

Advanced Users can increase the MaxSocket in the Registry.

• First Backup the Registry

• Run RegEdit and navigate to:

• HKEY_LOCALMACHINE \ System \ CurrentControlSet \ Services \ VxD \ NWLink \ Ndi \ params \ maxsockets \ max

If max is set to less than 1020 then
• using right-click, Modify the max to 1020

[top of page]

BROWSING HABITS

Not many will welcome this item.

The largest of all speed gains comes from improving your browsing habits. Don't download useless material. Do you really need every single graphic and every line of text from many huge, and poorly designed, pages.
Kill bad habits. Remember all the times you hit the Next button, waited forever while a 25,000 byte file came down, and it contained just 30 words of text that you wanted (maybe about 250 bytes); you got 24,750 bytes of irritating flashing banners, unsolicited advertisements, and more links to yet more links.
While you're in mid-surf, you can, at any stage, hit the Esc button, or click Stop, or press the Spacebar (IE4). Give yourself a major 400-600% speed increase in Site access time! Give your patience, and your eyes, a rest. Click Refresh when on the occasions you do need the graphics.
If you wish, you can turn off the clutter completely. Do that and you'll get text, and you'll get it fast. Fortunately most good sites give you alternative text in place of the graphics.
To turn off the graphic downloads look in the browser's Options, and make the appropriate selections for graphics (and animation, sounds, ActiveX, and Java or Scripts)
Should you wish to see graphics at certain times you can re-select the Show Graphics items and hit Refresh. In the meanwhile you will browse at nearly acceptable speed.

[top of page]

FALL-BACK & FALL-FORWARD

Do not assume you will always connect at your best speed. Modern modems will connect at a lower speed (Fall Back) if line conditions (noise) are poor, and will increase (Fall Forward) if conditions improve.

Sometimes it falls back too soon and too far even if your modem is Hayes-compatible. The setting controlling it is S36= . Setting this to 7 (default for Hayes-compatible modems) will force your modem to try connecting at high speeds in two ways before dropping back to an asynchronous connection with automatic speed buffering.

If you have this problem then:
• Search for the value "S36=" in the initialization string
• Check if your modem will accept S36=7 (see your manual)
Go to Control Panel • Modems
Select your modem and click on Properties
Select the Connection tab, and click on Advanced
In the Extra Settings box type in :
S36=7

Note: You can try S11=50 to cut the dialing delay in half (default is S11=100, milliseconds).
Some modems ignore anything below 50.

[top of page]

DOWNLOADING - Previewing Pages

The long wait!

You wait forever as a page loads and then find it has nothing of interest. Well, you could have the graphics, and other items, disabled.

However you may like the free utility called WebTurbo. This gives you a text preview of the page before you load it. It installs as a button on the menu bar, and works with both Navigator and Internet Explorer. You can also query six search engines simultaneously, and view your favourite Sites.

Get WebTurbo at CNET

[top of page]

DOWNLOADING - using FTP

Downloading from a FTP site can be much faster than from the ordinary sites. Obviously this is important when large, or regular, downloading is involved. You can also upload files using FTP.

FTP sites are excellent Internet resources, so they can be extremely busy. Occasionally you won't be able to connect to the FTP site you want. You may get a message that says the site already has currently too many users logged on, or you perhaps no message at all. Most often it is best to use off-peak hours.

To speed up file downloads from FTP sites, try using a dedicated FTP utility like CuteFTP or ws_ftpleinstead of a browser like Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator. These are also more flexible for multiple downloads.

• CuteFTP

[top of page]

DOWNLOADING - When & Where

Nearest Site or the least busy one?

By all means do use the ISP nearest to you - the shorter the distance between you and your ISP the better the connection.

However do not assume that the nearest Site is the one to download from - this is a myth. The best Site is the least busy one no matter where it is geographically relative to you (provided it is not a dud!) - this far outweighs the advantage of having one near you.

Basically you should access/download from Sites that are in the middle of the night, including local ones if you yourself happen to be awake! This will greatly enhance larger downloads in particular.

For very large downloads always check if your ISP has the file on a Proxy Server and if FTP is available. If so then download when he is at off-peak time.

[top of page]

DOWNLOADING - When & Where

Some browser utilities actively search out the fastest route for downloading a particular file, and will also continue the download from the point of a disconnection. Netscape Navigator has the latter facility, Internet Explorer does not.

A further consideration is the type of Sites you visit. Large and well-known Sites have the advantage of being comprehensive; however they are also very busy and take ages to load. All the information they contain is also available in many smaller less known Sites which are less busy and load quickly.

Finally: There will always be times when it is advisable to cut your losses and give up - for the moment. There are a huge number of items that can go wrong at any one time. If you are not getting an adequate download rate then click on Cancel, and try again - you will almost certainly be routed differently and may get a better speed (clicking Stop will stop a page coming down, but will not stop a download). If still to slow then disconnect and try later. Perseverance can often be futile. Downloading a large file at less than 3KB/sec will drive you to distraction.

[top of page]