Speedguide.net - Tips on tweaking

**PLEASE ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS IF YOU NEED HELP**

The answers to the following questions are VERY important when posting asking for assistance, if you do not answer them you will not recieve any assistance. You must help us help you!

1. What type of connection do you have? i.e. 56K, ISDN, DSL (PPPoE or not), Cable etc.

2. Who is your ISP and what is your advertised speed from them? i.e. Cox.net & 3000/256 - this is advertised in kilobits per second.

3. What are your current settings now? Do a TCP/IP Analyzer Test and copy and paste the results (remember to XXXXX out your IP address) here.

4. Please tell us your operating system i.e. 95, 98, 98SE, ME, 2K or XP.

*NOTE* AOL user don't bother tweaking your connection, AOL doesn't use the standard TCP/IP stack.

IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND
Remember, your goal is to get about 90% of your rated speed, sometimes depending on factors beyond your control i.e. routers, servers, line quality, overloaded node etc. it just isn't going to happen, no matter what you do.

MTU Values - THIS MUST BE SET PROPERLY PRIOR TO ANY OTHER TWEAKING

The Maximum Transmission Unit value should be set accordingly: 56K, PPPoA DSL, Cable Modem - 1500 / PPPoE DSL - 1492 / XP PPPoE DSL - 1480*
*Note* - With XP and PPPoE DSL your MTU can either be 1492 or 1480, make sure your settings are adjusted for the proper MTU.

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!!!

Download, update and scan with SpyBot S&D EXACTLY as I explain HERE & Ad-aware EXACTLY as I explain HERE to remove any spyware then install and update SpywareBlaster to stay spyware FREE. YOU MUST USE BOTH AD AWARE & SPYBOT TO ENSURE YOU ARE SPYWARE FREE SINCE ONE FINDS WHAT THE OTHER MISSES. Spyware can and will ruin your connection and crash your pc!


LINKS TO HELP YOU OPTIMIZE YOUR CONNECTION

RWIN & BIT CALCULATOR
Ping & Tracert Information
DSL PPPoE Help
The Windows 2000 White Papers
Driver Updates
CableNut Definitions 2K & XP
CableNut Definitions 98 & ME
CableNut Live for 2K & XP
CableNut Live for 98 & ME
Windows XP PPPoE DSL Fix
DSL Wiring Guide


TOOLS TO HELP YOU OPTIMIZE YOUR CONNECTION

TCP Optimizer
CableNut
TCP/IP Anlyzer


TcpWindowSize (RWIN) FORMULA

(Maximum Bandwidth x Maximum Anticipated Latency) / 8

Example of a connection with a 3000 download cap with a maximum latency of 100 ms:

(3000 x 100) / 8 = 37500 To make it a multiple of MSS divide by 1460:

37500 / 1460 = 25.68 Then round up to the nearest even whole number:

26 x 1460 = 37960 - Optimum RWIN


SPEAKEASY SPEED TESTS

New York City
Chicago
Washington D.C.
San Francisco
Denver
Dallas
Atlanta
Boston
Philadelphia
Los Angeles
Cleveland
Houston
Miami
Minneapolis/St. Paul
Seattle


FTP SPEED TESTS

OOL FTP Speed Test
ftp://ftp1.optonline.net/pub/test64

AOL FTP Test
ftp://ftp.newaol.com/aol6.0/179902/setupaol60.exe

RoadRunner FTP Test
ftp://test.tampabay.rr.com/ftp.50m.sav

The most reliable way to test your speed/bandwith is to use one of the FTP tests above. Just download about half of it (until your speed levels off) and multiply the average by 8 to see how close to your caps you are.


OTHER IMPORTANT RECOMMENDATIONS


- SETTING YOUR NIC DUPLEX MODE PROPERLY:

ALWAYS connect your modem via ethernet (NIC) and make sure you have the latest drivers for your NIC from the manufacturer and set your duplex mode to "auto". If you are using a router make sure you have the latest firmware. DO NOT CONNECT YOUR MODEM VIA USB!!



- SPEED UP NETWORK BROWSING:

* Open up regedit.
* Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace.

Delete the key: {D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}.

- 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 web-surfing 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)

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.

For 98 & ME they should look like:

01 00 00 00

- SETTING IE'S SETTINGS CORRECTLY

Open Internet Explorer and select Tools - Internet Options - under the General tab in the Temporary Internet files section select the Settings button.

Select "Every visit to the page" and set the amount of disk space to use: to no more than 100MB. Now select the Connections tab and select LAN Settings make sure EVERYTHING there is unchecked and select OK.

IE6 ONLY - select the Privacy tab and choose Advanced check the box "Override automatic cookie handling" and for First-party Cookies - Accept, Third-party Cookies - Block and check "Always allow session cookies.

Set your temporary internet cache to 100mb and delete it weekly.

- RESET YOUR MODEM REGULARLY

Another thing to do about once a week if you modem is on 24/7 is to power cycle your modem, just completely disconnect power from it for atleast 15 seconds and then power it back on.

- DNS CACHE FIX

By default Windows 2K & XP cache everything in the DNS cache service, both correct and faulty DNS lookups. To increase performance by eliminating the caching of faulty DNS lookups, change the following values from whatever their original values are to zero.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters]
"NegativeCacheTime"=dword:00000000
"NetFailureCacheTime"=dword:00000000
"NegativeSOACacheTime"=dword:00000000

- USE ETHERNET INSTEAD OF USB

Always connect your modem via ethernet (Network Interface Card) instead of USB, ethernet is faster and much more stable. Also make sure you have the latest drivers for your NIC from the manufacturer NOT Microsoft, alot of times the drivers from the manufacturer have advanced settings that help optimize the performance of your NIC that the native Microsoft drivers don't have.

- SCAN WEEKLY WITH FOR SPYWARE

Make sure to keep Ad-aware, SpyBot and SpywareBlaster up to date and do weekly scans.

- UPDATE YOUR DRIVERS AND FIRMWARE:

Make sure you have the latest drivers for your NIC from the manufacturer. If you are using a router make sure you have the latest firmware.

- MINIMIZE YOUR AMOUNT OF PROTOCOLS:

For 2K & XP - Under your LAN connection - properties - general tab, uninstall all the protocols there that you do not need. *Note - If using 2K & XP and you are a stand alone pc then the only protocol you need is Internet Protocol TCP/IP.

- SETUP TCP/IP PROPERLY:

(XP Only) Setting your TCP/IP metric setting properly, it should be set to a value of 1. To do so do the following:

Open your control panel – select the network icon – right click on your LAN connection and select properties – highlight Internet Protocol TCP/IP and select properties – advanced – select the IP settings tab – in the interface metric box put the value 1 – ok. Also disable NetBios over TCP/IP if you are not file or printer sharing.

- FORWARD BUFFER MEMORY TWEAK:

This value controls how much RAM TCP/IP uses for storing packet data in the router packet queue.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters]

"ForwardBufferMemory"=dword:00024a00
"NumForwardPackets"=dword:0000024a
"MaxForwardBufferMemory"=dword:00024a00
"MaxNumForwardPackets"=dword:0000024a

*Note - These values should be adjusted according to your MTU value, the above are based on a MTU of 1500. For further explanation please read HERE.

Source : http://forums.speedguide.net/showthread.php?t=73799