Internet Speed Tweaks

[georgenoise]

Does anyone have a program they recommend that can run to automatically adjust internet and network settings for optimal speed. I know all the big names like Best Buy, Office Depot, Cicuit City have automated programs but I'm wondering what everyone else is doing/using to optimize internet speeds. I haven't found anything worth mentioning yet.

 

[hawks5999]

most tools that advertise that they speed up internet connection don't.
You can't squeeze more speed out of a best effort ISP and you can't make a T-1 act like a T-3.

 

[gunslinger]

There are tweaks you can do to firefox to make it load faster. I have seen no such tweaks for IE that get the same results. These tweaks don't actually speed up your internet connection, They just speed up your browser.

There are also ways to hack a cable modem to actually uncap the connection and make it much faster. This is very illegal and your ISP will shut you down quickly if you do this.

 

[Crgky127]

I've heard fasterfox and cablenut work, but I don't know if they make a noticeable difference.

 

[gunslinger]

I never tried cablenut, but fasterfox never did anything for me.

These are the tweaks I use:

 

[NYJimbo]

These aren't speed tweaks but I have found that if people are having issues with their higher speed links I check at least two things.

In their Network Connections screen where they can change TCP/IP settings or change their NIC card info, get into the Network Adaptor configuration and usually under the "Advanced" tab be sure they have "Flow Control" set to "Hardware Default (auto)" or whatever your o/s verbiage says. This seems to be critical for streaming video. Lots of customers who watch online porn bitch about jerky video and this often cleans it up. This may vary with some systems, but so far going with the above gives better performance.

Also under "Connection Type" be sure its set to "100Base TX full duplex" if it's available. I have seen customers with it set to "10base T" or "Auto" and it not providing the full throughput they bought. Auto should have worked but it did not. We had a customer last week who had just bought 20down/5up FIOS and the idiot from Verizon couldn't figure out why the client only did something like 6 down. Setting it to 100Base TX allowed it to go full speed.

If I can think of more I will post them......

 

[bmetman]

Yeah. The auto negotiation setting has been known to fail from time to time. Whenever possible manually set your speed to 100/full when its available.