WTF my 33.6 modem is FASTER than my 56k modem!!!

[OneOfTheseDays]

wtf is going on here. I have a lucent 56k isa hardware based modem and a usr 33.6 modem as well. my 56k modem is terribly slow and my 33.6 k modem smokes it. However, i can download faster with my 56k modem. Webpages load very slow with the 56k however.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

bump

 

[tontod]

Could be that your 56k modem has higher latency? Not sure. Which one is faster in games?

 

[xtreme2k]

Is compression ON for your 56k modem?

Webpages can be compressed nicely usually.

 

[SiliconVandal]

Same here. I have a 56k ISA Supra Express (hardware) based on Rockwell HCF. I have a Viking 33.6 V.90, and it smokes the 56k in games, and then I have a 33.6 X2 USR Sportster, and it smokes both of them. Both the 33.6's download friggin' slow though, so I use the Supra. Not sure why

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

its just really weird because i can dl faster on my 56k modem. The 33.6 modem is rock solid and stable and gets data very efficiently, whiel the 56k is very erratic and has speed bursts and moments of no speed at all

 

[bluemax]

Compression??? Man... I must be lacking in modem knowledge...
I'd love to know how to tweak this 56k to squeeze out an extra drop of performance.

 

[crazychicken]

solve all by crazychicken:
GET CABLE OR DSL

you are way behind the game w/ 56k, and it is exactly the same price

 

[igowerf]

The erratic speeds on 56k may mean that noise in your phone line causes the 56k connection to be unstable. I used to have that same problem. The highest I could connect on 56k was a 37,000bps and it was incredibly unstable, but a 28800 connection was rock solid. We called the phone company and asked them to clean the lines and now I get solid 45,333 - 50,666 connections.

 

[GT1999]

If your ISP uses a differnet, conflicting chipset than yours then you will experience V.34 speeds if not a little more, around the 33.6 range. If you update your modem drivers this problem *should* go away.

A good example is a server running 3Com USR Dialup Chassis modems while the home users runs an outdated Rockwell HCF modem with an old V.90 implementation.

56k modem drivers: www.56k.com

 

[andrey]

Usually 33.6 will seem to be faster for loading of webpages is because 33.6 modems are using V.34 protocol instead of V.90. This V.34 protocol has better compression quality and usually more stable. At the same time, most of the 33.6 modems are hardware based modems and most of the 56K modems mentioned above are software based modems. Software modems use your CPU to do all the work, while hardware modems work independently and that will be the reason why hardware modems usually show better performance in games. If dialup modem is really the only way you get online, to have the best of both worlds, hardware based 56K modem will be the best solution (USRobotics Sportster 56K ISA for example). I hope this helps,

 

[Instigator]

andrey is right. Modems that use your cpu are usually called WinModems and are horrible for online gaming play. Also ISA hardware modems tend to have less latency than PCI hardware modems. Sudheer Anne, what type of modems does your ISP use? Also, have you downloaded the lastest drivers for the Lucent 56k?

 

[bluemax]

<< you are way behind the game w/ 56k, and it is exactly the same price >>


Well.... my 56k access is FREE, vs. $40/mo for ADSL... not like I'm concerned with &quot;keeping up with the Joneses&quot; but I waste so much time waiting..... waiting..... ugh.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

I'm not sure what modem my isp uses. I use earthlink so does anybody here know what modems they use???

 

[LadyNiniane]

Sudheer Anne wrote: 'I'm not sure what modem my isp uses. I use earthlink so does anybody here know what modems they use??? '

Depends on what POP you're using. If it's one of the original MindSpring (and I think a few Netcom) ones, it's USR V.90; if it's a UUNet/WorldCom POP (or Gridnet), it could be anything from a Rockwell (K56Flex) to USR to who knows what?

Could be a combo of mismatched modems and lousy phone lines. We have had several flavors of modem around here, accessing the same POP across the same phone lines. The genuine USR V.90 generally got the best connections (33.6 to 39), the HCF couldn't even connect most of the time and barely managed 28.8 when it did get connected. Others got results somewhere in between. Local telco replaced the drop from pole to house twice over 10 years; no significant changes. They claimed that the lines met the FCC spec (fax at 9.6) and that they couldn't do anything else to clean up the lines (without spending money on fiber, another switching office, etc., etc., etc., all of which they had no desire to do out where we are).

We changed local phone service carriers and went with broadband cable carrier (talk over cable/fiber optic); our dial-up connections all jumped to 45k and higher (son-&amp;-heir routinely connects at 50k+). Downloads that used to take several hours (MSIE updates, for example) are now running 1 hour or less. Amazing what getting away from copper does...

Lady Niniane