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I have some questions that probably have more to do with win95 and
dialup connections, but i also have some nice reactions to some
enhancements of my TP 701cs, that occasioned the questions, that are
worth reporting.
First, the questions:
Can anyone tell me whether there's anything i could/should be doing to
get win95 dial-ups to my provider to connect at the max speed? I'm
using a 3Com PCMCIA EtherLink III combo modem in my thinkpad 701, and
Netcom has 28.8 modems, but the connections are always reported as
24000 or 26400. ?
Also, i frequently, but sporadically, lose the connection. Sometimes
it happens moments after connection, but it seems like i often don't
see it until after i've been online for half an hour or an hour, and
it's not unusual for me to be able to be connected for hours before it
happens.
Could these problems be due to a noisy phone line, or something like
that, or are there some software settings i should be tweaking? I
tried a few things, like mucking with the input/output buffers
("Advanced" settings in the modem properties sheet), with zero
noticeable effect. Any suggestions would be apppreciated.
So.
To add a bit of TP relevancy, i recently gave in to disk space
pressures and invested some bucks - $750, to be exact - in my aging
thinkpad. I got a pepsales 2.1 GB toshiba disk, to replace my IBM 720
MB one. (720 isn't small, but easily gets crowded with full linux and
Windows installations.) Not cheap - $750 for the do-it-yourself kit -
but i'm quite pleased with the improvement!
For the pepsales 701 upgrade disks, "do-it-yourself" means pop in the
disk, and figure out how to format it. There actually would be a
reason to pay the additional $50 to have them do the job - they'll
transfer the personality from the old disk for you. However, i wanted
to take the opportunity of a fresh disk to give Win 95 a try, in
addition to doing an upgrade to Redhat 4.1 on the Linux side.
Which brings me to my next item - i am quite glad i gave '95 a try -
there is no way i would go back to to Win 3.1. I think the user
interface is, finally, worthwhile, and more importantly, the included
ppp networking and array of drivers means i can get a substantial
system set up without creating a godawful, fragile mess! (Plug and
play found drivers for my modem, ethernet card, SCSI adaptor, zip
drive, and CDROM cards without blinking. I was able to get them all
going in win31, but it was a major trauma *every* time i had to add
somethign new. Yuck!) I suppose there's a degree of luck in whether
or not your particular stuff is accommodated, but if it is (or if the
vendor makes available suitably packaged drivers), it's an incredible
relief!
I'm a bit embarrassed to admit it, being a bit of a unix bigot, but
with the nice UI, well integrated PPP and FAX capabilities, ability to
use the lotus smartsuite that came with the thinkpad, etc, it turns
out that i now spend more time in Win95 than in Linux. Oh well...-)
(Note that i have no affiliation with either pepsales or microsoft -
just a satisfied customer. ... Though i do think microsoft charges
*way* too much for their software, despite my appreciation ...)
Ken Manheimer klm@python.org 703 620-8990 x268
(orporation for National Research |nitiatives
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