Make Reality

Boost the performance of your Internet connection with our indispensable, no nonsense tips and tweaks. No doubt you’ve seen the banner ads: ‘Double your Internet connection speed!’ ‘Your Internet connection isn’t optimised!’ There are plenty of
folks trying to sell you software that will speed up your Internet connection. While some of the tweaks applied by such software can help to improve the speed of your connection, some do nothing of value. This month we take a look at some tips that anyone can apply when trying to optimise the speed of their Internet connection,
regardless of whether you’re using dial-up, DSL or a cable connection. The single issue that has the greatest effect on the speed of your Internet connection is the method used to connect. While both DSL and cable-based Internet connections provide download speeds ranging from 256K to 3Mb or more, traditional modems are limited to a theoretical maximum of 56K. Under best conditions, this means a maximum of about 52K . Regardless of any bandwidth limitations, there are a number of methods to help improve the speed of your connection. Remember, though, that optimisation settings will result in more efficient performance, but understand that the bandwidth you’re
dealing with won’t change.

Optimised settings
If you search the Internet for ways to optimise your Internet connection, one of the most common suggestions that you’ll come across is to tweak the MTU size associated with your connection. MTUstands for Maximum Transmission Unit, and represents the largest packet size that a particular technology can handle without the need to split the packet up into smaller pieces, known as fragmentation. When Windows creates packets with a size larger than the MTU, they must be fragmented. This leads to sub-optimal performance and an often inefficient use of the connection. Although later versions apply the correct default MTU to dial-up and Ethernet connections, windows 95 dial-up connections were particularly prone to this issue. It used an MTU of 1,500 bytes by default, even on a dial-up connection. The easiest way to determine the maximum MTU supported by your ISP is by using the ‘ping’ command. When issued with the -f and -l options, the command will show you whether packets of different sizes are being fragmented. The following command will highlight whether fragmentation occurs, based on a specified packet size of 1,400 bytes: ping -f -l 1400. If the ping responds normally, try a higher MTU setting. If the ping returns a value of ‘Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set’ then you know you’re above the maximum MTU your connection supports. Play around withpacket size values until you find the MTU associated with your connection. Changing the MTU value in the Registry can be difficult. Consider using a tweaking utility like TweakMASTER – detailed over the page – to change the value easily, or see the walkthrough below to edit the Registry directly. Another setting known as the Receive Window Size can have a far greater impact on optimising your Internet connection. The Receive Window dictates how much data your system can receive before it needs to send an acknowledgement packet back to the sending host. On Windows 95, 98, Me systems, this is set to 8K by default. Windows NT, 2000, and XP systems on the other hand use a 16K window size by default. Although specifying a larger Receive Window size can improve performance,
there is a down side. If you configured a 32K Receive Window, an acknowledgement will be sent after every 32K of data is received. However, if the sender receives nothing, the entire 32K needs retransmiting. As such, a setting of 16K is generally preferred for dial-up connections, while you should consider settings of anywhere between 32K to 64K for DSL or cable connections. These are much more reliable, and the change can result in significant performance increases. DNS settings
When you type a server name like www.pcplus.co.uk into your web browser, your system will query a configured DNS server to find the IP address associated with the name. Although these requests are fairly small and efficient, it’s possible to circumvent the process entirely by adding manual entries that map hostnames to IP addresses in your system’s HOSTS file, found in the Windows \ system32 \ drivers \ directory on an XP system, or the Windows directory on a 95, 98, Me system. When entries are placed in this file, they’re used instead of a normal DNS query, which can often speed up performance. Unfortunately, if the IP address of a server changes, you won’t be able to reach it. If you want to implement this tip, consider using software like TweakMASTER rather than editing the file directly. TweakMASTER will add entries to the HOSTS file dynamically, and will even update entries when necessary if so configured. One common problem on XP systems is associated with the way in which the DNS client service will cache DNS information, especially when it can’t find an entry in DNS for the server being sought. XP implements what is known as negative caching, where an entry that can’t be found will be cached for
five minutes. Because of this, attempts to reach a site whose DNS information may not have been available will continue to fail, until this time has passed. To circumvent this problem (especially when you know that a server does exist from previous visits), you can issue the ipconfig/flushdns command from the command line, or implement the steps outlined on the previous page to turn off negative
caching completely on an XP system. To view the contents of the DNS cache, use the
ipconfig/displaydns command.

Getting better performance out of your Internet connection isn’t just about tweaking Windows settings – it also has a great deal to do with ensuring that your system is performing optimally. For best results, use the settings outlined in this article in conjunction with a maintenance schedule that includes regularly defragmenting partitions, clearing out your Temporary Internet Files, and not running unnecessary programs over services while online. On the hardware side, more RAM, a faster hard disk, and a quality network card or modem can’t hurt either.

Finally, some of the Internet connection tweaking packages lead you to believe that changes they make will improve performance when in fact, some do nothing at all. If you do venture into this territory, be sure to back up any changes you make so that you can restore your system to its original state should you not notice any performance changes at all. Better to be safe than sorry.

Registry performance tweaks

Click Start, Run, type regedit and click OK. Consider using the Export option
available by right-clicking a particular key (folder) to back it up prior to making any changes.
Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | SYSTEM | CurrentControlSet | Services |
Tcpip | Parameters and create a DWORD value called GlobalMaxTcp
WindowSize. For a receive window of 32K, set this value to 8,000 in hex or 32,768
in decimal. All connections will now use a 32K window size.
Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | SYSTEM | CurrentControlSet | Services |
Tcpip | Parameters | Interfaces and determine which folder is associated with the
connection you wish to change (the IPAddress entry provides a clue). Change the
value associated with the MTU to your preferred value.
Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | SYSTEM | CurrentControlSet | Services |
Dnscache | Parameters and create three new DWORD values:
NegativeCacheTime, NetFailureCache and NegativeSOACacheTime, all with a
value of 0. This will disable negative DNS caching.
Browse to HKEY_USERS |.Default | Software | Microsoft | Windows | Current |
Version | Internet Settings and create two DWORD values: Max
ConnectionsPerServer and MaxConnectionsPer 1_0Server. Give each a value in
decimal that relates to the number of simultaneous HTTP connections.
Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER | Software | Microsoft | Windows | Current |
Version | Internet Settings and create the same values outlined in step 5. This
setting will apply to the current user only. Reboot your system and log on to have
all your changes take effect.