Troubleshooting your DSL connection

Tweak your system

If you suspect that your DSL connection is running slower than you think it should, experiment with a few system registry tweaks to make sure that your operating system is optimally configured. However, I should point out that if you run Windows 95, 98, and Me, you are more likely to need these changes than if you run Windows NT or 2000 on your system.

There are a couple dozen changes that you can make to the registry to configure your operating system for your broadband connection, but I recommend that you use a utility that performs the changes for you rather than manually attempting to make those changes yourself. However, without getting too technical, let's first take a look at a couple of the main settings that may need to be altered so that you'll have an idea of what these changes affect.

The first change has to do with a setting known as the TCP Receive Window, or RWIN for short, which determines how much data your computer can receive before it acknowledges the receipt. If the RWIN setting is too small, RWIN will function more slowly since each data packet will have to be acknowledged before the next packet is sent. If the RWIN setting is too large, RWIN may not be able to keep up with the data flow and some data packets will be lost or damaged.

The next setting is called Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) and refers to the largest amount of data that can be transferred in one physical packet. If the MTU setting doesn't match the size of the packets being transferred, fragmentation occurs, which will cause slow downs. The other important setting is called Maximum Segment Size (MSS). The MSS setting defines the largest segment of TCP data that the Winsock is prepared to receive. When a connection is established, both systems compare MSS settings and agree to use the smaller of each system's value. If your system's MSS setting is too small, it will take longer to transfer data.

As I mentioned, it's a lot simpler to make these types of changes via a utility. The utility I recommend is called Speedcorp Tweak from Speednet. While there are similar utilities out there, this one is specifically designed for broadband connections, performs its single task efficiently and safely, is very easy to use, and comes with an undo feature. As I mentioned, Windows 2000 isn't very likely to need these changes, even though there is a Windows 2000 version of the Speedcorp Tweak utility that you can use to make changes to a Windows 2000 system. (Note: If you click on the link in the preceding sentence, you will download the utility immediately.)

Contents

1.  Intro      2.  Test your connection speed      3.  Monitor your connection      4.  Tweak your system      5.  Problems caused by line quality      6.  Problems cause by household lighting      7.  External AC/DC power adapters      8.  Resources

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