Dial up modem tips.
Check your modem type. If you're using a "WinModem"
instead of a conventional modem, your computer is having to
act as the data controller (conventional modems have a built-
in controller), so performance will slow considerably when
your processor is busy working on a big operation.
WinModems are much cheaper, but they can sacrifice
overall performance.
You can determine your modem type by looking under
Start>>Settings>>Control Panel>>Modems.
While you're in the Control Panel, take a look to see if your
COM port settings are optimized. Select System, then click on
the Device Manager tab. Scroll to the Ports (Com and LPT)
category, and select Communications Port (often COM1, but it
could be COM2, COM3 or any other COM port) and then click
on Properties.
In the Communications Port Properties window, select the
Port Settings tab, and check to see that the "Bits per second"
rate is set to the highest value possible (usually 115200).
Leave the values for Data bits, Parity and Stop bits at their
default values.
In the Flow Control setting, "Xon/Xoff" is the default
setting, telling your system to use software flow control for
data coming from your modem to the COM port. The other
option (besides "none") is "Hardware," which is much faster
than software control but isn't supported by all modems.
Check your modem's manual to see if you can use "Hardware"
flow control -- if you can't find out for sure, just use the
software setting.
Finally, check your port's FIFO (first-in, first-out) buffer
settings by selecting the Advanced tab (in the Communications
Port Properties window). Typically the default settings work
fine, but you may want to try adjusting the settings to see if
you experience any data overruns (which can show up as
excessive errors while transferring files, poor overall
performance, stuttered multitasking during file transfers).
If you're not already using a download assistance
program, you should also consider that. A program like
Download Accelerator Plus (http://www.speedbit.com) can
download big files more efficiently as well as resume an
aborted download where it left off.