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How do I improve my connection speed?
Adjusting Your MTU and RWIN Settings

By default, Windows' network settings are optimized for transferring data on a Local Area Network rather than on the Internet with a DSL Modem. Fortunately, the settings are adjustable and with a few simple tweaks, you can make Windows work a lot more efficiently with your available internet bandwidth.

Normally, adjusting the default Windows Setting involves drudging around in the registry. Fortunately, there are programs out there that make changing these settings easier. One of these programs is Dr. TCP. For your convenience, a copy of the program is included on the Welcome CD.

Although there are several settings that you can change on Dr. TCP, you will need to pay attention to only three of them :

TCP Receive Window - This is the setting for RWIN. It is the single most important setting you can change with Dr. TCP. RWIN determines how much data your computer will receive before it will send back an ACK Packet (acknowledgement packet). It is the way your computer tells the host on the Internet that it has received the data the server been sent to it. By increasing the RWIN size, your computer will not have to send as many ACK packets, thus saving that much latency and bandwidth on your internet connection.

Unfortunately, a bigger RWIN means much more data has to be resent to you if the ACK packet doesn't make it's way back to the host Thus there is a trade off between setting RWIN too low or too high. An optimal value make take some time to discover. However, below are the recommended RWIN values for average DSL subscribers according to their plan :

(128 kbps) 5,808

(256 kbps) 10,164

(512 kbps) 20,328

You may want to try a little experimenting on your own to see if you can come up with better values for your specific setup.

Selective Acks - One way to counteract the problem of lost ACK packets is through Selective Acknowledgement (SACK). This basically allows your host to confirm that you have received specific non-contiguous packets in a data stream. This can improve speed on lines that have a tendency to lose packets by making it so that the host only needs to resend packets that were actually lost rather than larger chunks of data when ACK packets are not received. Although, by default, Windows has this set to On, you might as well set Dr TCP to Yes for this value, just in case.

MTU - This is the Maximum Transmission Unit for windows. It is basically the largest packet of data that can be sent at one time on the network. In general, sending data in larger packets can save bandwidth since fewer packet headers need to be sent. However, if a portion of the packet gets corrupted, this would mean a larger chunk of data needs to be resent as well.

In general, a higher MTU can help speed up downloads while a lower MTU can help improve performance for latency sensitive tasks such as online multiplayer gaming. An MTU value of 1452 is recommended for most DSL subscribers. If you decide to set MTU to anything other than default, make sure that you set it on the Ethernet Adapter that is hooked up to the DSL modem.

Although you should not need to set the other values since they have very minimal affects on your connection, a brief description of all the other settings you can change with Dr. TCP is in order.

TTL - Time to Live, it means the total number of hops a packet is allowed to take before it is discarded as lost. Routers tend to set back any TTL value above 32 back to the default 32, so it really isn't worth adjusting this value.

Black Hole Detection - This helps detect routers that are likely to MTU Discovery to work poorly. Unless you are running a server, this is unlikely to help your connection and should thus be left at its default value, which is No.

Max Duplicate ACKs - This allows for quick resending of lost data packets at the cost of some bandwidth. This setting should be left at default which is 3 for Windows 9x/ME and 2 for Windows NT/2000/XP.

Time Stamping - This helps minimize the number of packets that are lost by adding timestamp data on the header of each packet that is sent. The size of the timestamp, however, tends to cancel out any benefits this creates. Unless you have unusually high packet loss, you should leave this at default which No.

How do I improve my connection speed?
Optimizing Your Ethernet Card

Optimization of the Ethernet Card is often something that is overlooked as a means of improving Internet Connection. Updating the drivers for your Ethernet Card can give a noticeable boost in speed. You can search for the most current drivers for your Ethernet Card on the Internet. If you do not know what Ethernet Card you have installed, click on the Start button then on Control Panel then on System and then on Device Manager. You will need to scroll down and look for Network Adapters. By expanding it, you will be able to see the brand name and model of your Ethernet Card. You can find the latest drivers for your specific Ethernet Card by using any search engine or by visiting http://www.drivershq.com. The drivers should come with instructions on how to install them.

You can also try to dedicate some of your RAM to your Ethernet Card to try to improve it's performance. In order to do this follow the steps below :

1. Click on the Start button then on Control Panel

2. Click on System then on Device Manager

3. Scroll down, look for Network Adapters and expand it.

4. Select the Ethernet Card hooked up to your DSL modem and click on the Properties button.

5. Under the Resources Tab, you should see Interrupt Request

6. Remember the number under this setting and close the windows you just opened

7. Click on the Start button then on Run then type sysedit and click on OK

8. Open the system.ini window and scroll down until you see [386enh]

9. Underneath this header type in a thsi new line : Irq##=4096 (where ## is your Ethernet Card's Interrupt Request number).

10. Save the file and close it.

11. You will need to reboot your computer before you can see the effects.

You have just reserved 4 megabytes of RAM for your Ethernet Card. This will hopefully help speed up your connection. If you do not notice any noticeable difference in performance, you should go ahead and simply remove the entry you created to free up the memory.

How do I improve my connection speed?
Optimizing Internet Explorer

The speed at which Internet Explorer get data from web pages can be improved significantly by changing two values in it's setting. Both MaxConnectionsPerServer and MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server essentially limit the number of connections that Internet Explorer can make to a web server. If you have a fast connection, it is likely that the default setting of 4 will not make full use of your bandwidth to download the webpage. By setting these values to higher number like 16, browsing can become noticeably faster. To change these settings, you will need to first click on the Start button then on Run then type Regedit and click the OK button. This will open the Registry editor where you will need to edit :

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Winodws\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings

MaxConnectionsPerServer

MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server

*Note : Only subscribers comfortable with editing registry keys should even attempt to change these settings. Changing these settings are also a violation of the HTTP 1.1 Agreement and should only be done if it is absolutely necessary.

How do I improve my connection speed?
Specifying A Safe IP Address For Your Ethernet Card

By default, when you boot-up your computer, Windows will search for a DHCP Server for your Ethernet Card to assign it an IP Address. It actually takes awhile before your computer will realize that no such server exists on your network and Windows will assign your Ethernet Card an inactive IP Address. This can lead to slow boot times and on occasion, blackouts/time-outs while browsing as Windows decides to start looking for a DHCP Server again.

The solution to this problem is to specify a safe IP Address for your Ethernet Card so that Windows will stop searching for DHCP Servers. You can do this by following the steps below :

Windows XP

1. Click on the Start button and select Control Panel

2. Click on Network & Internet Connection

3. Click on Network Connections

4. Right Click on the Icon for your Ethernet Card connected to your DSL Modem

5. Select Properties

6. Select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)

7. Click on the Properties button

8. In the General Tab check Use the Following IP Address

9. Type 192.168.0.1 under IP Address

10. Set the Subnet Mask to 255.255.255.0

11. Click on OK then OK again

12. Reboot your computer

You should notice the difference in the amount of time Windows takes to boot-up right away.

Note : Following the steps above may cause some applications to mistaken the IP Address you specified for your Ethernet Card as your actual Internet IP Address which is assigned to you when you connect to the Internet. This may cause a some issues if you are hosting servers that other computers on the Internet must connect to. To resolve the problem, simply specify your real IP Address in the application in question.