Downloads make browsing slow on capped cable modem

[Codesmith]

I have a friend who is buying the lowest level of cable modem service from her provider capped at 112 kbps. I benchmarked it at DSL reports and she got a download score fo 110 kbps. She is running XP no service pack (yes I know)

Whenever I have something downloading at 10-12 KBps in the background web browsing slows to a crawl.

Is this normal? (My cable modem is very fast so I wouldn't know).

Is there some network setting I can change so that web browsing takes prioty over long downloads?

(And no I can't simply get her to pay $10-15 more for their uncapped service.)

 

[bjpatrick]

Well, you get what you pay for. There are programs out there that boast that they can make surfing the web faster and downloading. Take it from someone who left the realm of Cisco for graduate school.

If they capped her bandwidth at 112kbps. Then she ain’t going to get no more bandwidth! Simple as that. Unless the router reboots and the config was not saved but they will reconfig the router. Believe me! Let me tell you a little secret. Those routers are sending their data to syslog servers. He who tries to hack one of their routers and gets caught. Is a total fool.


<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by bjpatrick on 02/10/05 10:50 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Codesmith]

I don't want it to be faster than 112k.

I just don't want one download to take up all her bandwidth making web pages load a slowly as a dialup.

Maybe there is some way to have XP use what little bandwith she has more intelligently?

 

[pat]

112 kbits/sec is 14kbytes/seconde. On dialup, 4.5kbytes/seconde for binary download is an average. On web page, with text compression, it goes sometime up to 9-10 kbytes/sec. So, I guess that there is simply not enough bandwidth to have decent speed for both.

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[PatMcGroin]

Here is a couple of things that I think will help. I may not over ride while a download is in progress but it sure helps the rest of the time. If it doesnt help while activly downloading get Leehget download manager, I has a option to limit the band width used for the download (changeable on the fly) and supports resume.
FOR FASTER WEB PAGE LOADING:

This tweak will help web pages load faster, it has no real effect on download speeds, just helps your pc look up websites faster thereby speeding up how fast the page loads and making websurfing more enjoyable.

Navigate to this registry entry and change the following settings:

For XP & 2K

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\ServiceProvider

For 98, 98SE & ME

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\MSTCP\ServiceProvider


On the right for ALL OS's change these entries: (ALL values are HEXIDECIMAL)

Class - 1
DnsPriority - 1
HostsPriority - 1
LocalPriority - 1
NetbtPriority - 1

To change the value right mouse click on the value and select modify and enter the values above once you have done all of them reboot to take effect and see how fast your pages load.

You Dont Want To Be The Last to Know Anything.

 

[folken]

If you want to load up pages really fast just turn off pictures, lol. That is all those internet accelerator things do that companies try to sell off to people. They shrink or remove the pictures.
Go to tools, internet options, advanced, uncheck "show pictures".

<A HREF="http://www.folken.net/myrig.htm" target="_new">My precious...</A>