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Sun 20 Apr, 2003 12:29 pm
OK, I have DSL. I love it. I can watch, for example, movie trailers on the internet just beautifully, almost like TV. If I have to download something, zippity-zoom, it's finished. No problem.
But sometimes I try to do something (open a new window, refresh, click on a link -- anything requiring an active connection, really) and nothing happens for the longest time.
Let me set the scene a bit more: I have 5 windows open, email and 4 more. I click my inbox to see if I have anything new. The Internet Explorer (I have I.E.) windows symbol/ world goes round and round, but nothing happens. I move on to the next window, click "New Posts" on A2K, the world goes round and round, nothing happens. I move on to the next, click, nothing happens. Etc.
I sit there and wait, maybe catch up on reading from another window while I wait for something to happen. There are a few things I do that seem to occasionally "help" but I don't know if that's in the same category as thinking that pushing the elevator button repeatedly "helps".
1.) I randomly move the mouse around; If I don't touch the mouse, it seems to take longer. (I have waited up to 5 minutes without touching the mouse and nothing has happened, and then the instant I move the mouse, bam.)
2.) I put the cursor over the icon of the two connected computers in the lower left part of my screen. That seems (I'm serious) to make them light up, and then bam.
3.) I click "stop", and then re-click on whatever link I had just clicked and was waiting for. So for example, I click "new posts", nothing, I click "stop", then "new posts" again, and bam.
This is separate from a single site being slow, which happens sometimes. The specific issue I'm talking about is always across the board -- I have 5 pending windows and then they all simultaneously appear.
I hope this is somewhat understandable. What I am curious about is whether anything can be DONE about it. It sometimes drives me absolutely insane to wait and wait and wait (my elevator-button-pushing methods seem to work occasionally but are not a consistent solution.) I pay good money for DSL, and would like to have more reliable access to the internet.
Is this my computer? Is it my DSL? Is it something I just have to put up with unless I want to access the internet from 2 am to 5 am on weekdays?
Thanks.
Same thing happens to me, sozobe. And I try the same tricks you do ~ sometimes they work, sometimes not. It's a random issue and there is no way to fix it.
We are contemplating spending another $15 a month to upgrade to an even faster DSL connection. The people I know who have it say the problem disappears completely.
Well, soz, this happens to me, too. And like Rae and you, I'm using the same 'trick'.
(However, since I know that the computer is always against me, and since I've some advantage in age and wxxxxx <deleted>, I'm not driven to absolute insane by that :wink: .)
soz,
My guess is that you have 128 MB of RAM.
I have 256 MB of RAM.
Would more help?
Defrag?
Since I got 512 MB, I'm even more interested than before.
<clearing throat politely in hopes that one of the back-to-work people will be able to explain further>
Yeah,..I was thinking RAM, and bandwidth.
Having all of those windows active, and all online IS going to diminish your system's resources drastically. All of those windows are fighting for the limited bandwidth you're online with,..you are very effectively slowing yourself down. I don't like to run many programs online at once, and I'm on broadband now, which is alot faster than my old DSL.
I don't like to give the comp. too much to do at once, It just makes things faster, and less glitches pop up.
As far as moving the cursor around,..I'm pretty sure that your computer gives priority to finishing the task in the top window, so if one is slow you may get faster results by giving priority to another window.
Huh. So if, for example, the top window is email, and that is slow, it has priority so the computer "waits" for that one even if the other ones are ready to go?
Interesting.
What I don't get is it's not always slow, at all. It just has these sloggy periods. But I can also zip through all (lesse right now I have 9 windows open) 9 windows with no slowness at all. And I can have slowness with one or two windows. So it doesn't seem to have a direct correllation -- more windows equal slowness.
This is helpful, though, thanks!
Phoenix, thanks for the link. Does that mean you don't experience any of those waiting periods I described?
OK, I'm really encouraged that there seems to be something that can be DONE about this. E.G. thought it was purely a bandwidth thing.
More RAM always helps (up to about 512). I gotta run in a bit but I'd just like to advise against using third party memory defagmenters and memory managers without knowing what you are doing. Most of the time they hurt more than help.
If you can please provide:
Video card specs:
And any other shared memory specs.
Thanks for the tips. Yeah, hadn't done anything yet, though I do appreciate the links.
Video card specs: Not sure. When I look at the system properties, it says: "PC Cards (PCMCIA): No PC Card sockets are installed".
Memory-wise, I have 256 MB of RAM, of which 45% is free. Virtual memory is 32-bit. (Not sure if this has anything to do with "shared" -- was what I could come up with related to memory.)
This computer is not part of a network -- just our regular home PC.
Something else I just thought of which may help you computer wiz types triangulate (or may be a red herring):
I frequently use relay online, where I make phone calls through the computer. (See
https://www.ip-relay.com/index.htm) Frequently when I am in the middle of the call, everything stops. I usually have more than one window open at the time, but I am not switching between windows -- the only window I am doing anything with is the relay window.
This is a HUGE annoyance, and probably the single biggest drawback to this problem. I can be trying to make an appointment, everything stops, then all of a sudden the text comes pouring on the screen after a long delay, text like "Hello? Is anyone there? Hello? [person hung up]." Then I have to start all over again.
So, if there is a way to solve that problem, I'll be thrilled.
My first guess is that you are running Win 95 or ME. That's just based on your statement that when you click on the two connected PCs the system speeds up. With both Win95 and ME (probably 98 also) the OS seems to "forget" about the Internet connection at times. It goes anbout running some background task (clearing cache, running anti-virus software, disk, maintenance, etc..) and forgets to give CPU time to the Internet connection. Clicking on the connected PCs Icon or moving your mouse in teh window you want forces the OS to pay attention and suddenly things start happening.
I don't of any cure for that if that is what you are seeing. I upgraded to Win2000 to get away from it.
I'm definitely learning a lot -- thanks, everyone.
I have Windows 98, Second Edition. The "forgetting" thing you mention makes a lot of sense, fishin'. Would your suggestion be to upgrade, then? Is there a way to test and find out which of the possibilities is the main problem? (I imagine it might turn out to be several different problems at once.)
Fishin's post is very relevant, you might remember deb asking about this. She called it tickling her computer or something (one thing that makes these tech requests hard to solve is the many ways the user expresses the problem).
I asked about memory and video cards because it also sounds like a graphics dedicated memory deficiency. If you ahve an onboard graphics solution this could be part of the problem.
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As long as your hardware is compatible with XP (my only knock on XP is hardware compatibility) it's a good idea to upgrade.
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