packman

Can't find the notes I made on up[censored] the P3V4X BIOS, only those on my current PC. It's always the way, isn't it? However, I do have all the normal P3V4X BIOS settings to hand and I've looked through the P3V4X's handbook for what it says about the BIOS. It seems there are no jumper changes required for up[censored] the BIOS but, in the existing BIOS, do check that the following are correctly set before you proceed with the update: User password - disabled Supervisor password - disabled BIOS update - ENABLED (disable later) Ensure all the processor caches are enabled In the existing BIOS, you might also want to temporarily disable Boot Virus Detection, and also ensure that BootUp Floppy Seek is temporarily enabled, though I'm not sure whether those are absolutely necessary. Set the boot order so that the floppy disk is first (change back later). The floppy on which you put AWDFLASH and the binary file will need to be made bootable. Use a new floppy. Then make it bootable by typing: format A:/s from a DOS/Command Prompt When the floppy has been formatted, ensure that the only files on it are: msdos.sys io.sys command.com. If necessary, go back and, in Windows, temporarily uncheck "Hide protected operating system files", so that you can see ALL the files on the floppy. If any of the following are found, delete them from the floppy: drvspace.bin dblspace.bin autoexec.bat config.sys Also, ensure that drvspace.bin and dblspace.bin are not on the hard drive, as sometimes they can get erroneously written to the floppy during the up[censored]. If on the HD, temporarily rename them. Ensure the floppy is left in write-enabled mode, as a backup file will need to get written on to it during the up[censored]. Follow the handbook instructions for copying the binary file across and then doing the update. Note that the old AFLASH.EXE is not designed to work with Command Prompt in Windows and also will not work when "certain memory drivers get loaded from the hard disk" (a reference, I think, to drvspace and dblspace). Instead, I seem to recall that AWDFLASH.EXE works in its own DOS-like window. When the update has completed, allow the system to boot into Windows, then shut down the PC completely and reboot from cold. Then configure the new BIOS.

wizjr2005, I might be able to help you, as I used to use a P3V4X some years ago. I've still got the machine. It still works. It's one I built myself. Are you sure you need to update its BIOS? The version to which I updated was v6.0, Revn 1005. With Win2K, I didn't need to go further than that. I made quite a lot of notes on my P3V4X machine and successfully used Win2K on it for a number of years. In particular, I made a record of all the settings in the BIOS. I would not advise you to re-flash the BIOS unless you've got the little handbook on the P3V4X. In fact, I'd go further than that and say that you must be especially careful with ANY motherboard and BIOS as to which jumpers and BIOS settings to disable while you're doing it, as otherwise you can easily damage clock chips and other components on the board and not realise it. So, to answer your question, there are things you need to set in the existing BIOS, plus jumpers you need to temporarily change on the motherboard, before running the AWDFLASH. Incidentally, there was always controversy over Asus's ever-evolving 4-in-1 chipset drivers, but I and others always found that the version 4.32 worked (available as 4in1432.zip). Check with Asus that the v4.32 is equally suitable for WinXP. If and when you've done the BIOS, install in the following order: Windows Any service pack for Windows WinZip 4in1 chipset drivers (AGP/IDE) DirectX Graphics driver Monitor driver service pack for Internet Explorer Perhaps, in the case of WinXP, it'd be advisable to install WinXP SP1 only (not SP2). I've fully typed-up descriptions for all this, for the P3V4X, but I'm not sure if I made specific notes on re-flashing its BIOS. I'll have a look and report back here later.

This seems like a bit of a dummy question to ask, but how can I 'marquee' a portion of any screen, in order to save it as an htm file? "Any screen" means either online or offline. In most offline situations, there are no menu bars from which you can select commands.

Babyboy, It's done! I've persevered and finally found the method. Yes, using Paint. The only restriction is that the saved file format is .bmp only, but that's no big deal. Many thanks.

Well, Babyboy, I've had a try with Paint and I'm blowed if I can get what I need. The main problem seems to be that Paint handles only bitmap images. PrintScreen requires that, in the first instance, you specifically Paste the whole screen into an application and I'm finding that I can't do that with the browser (be it Internet Explorer or Firefox), presumably because the browser would need to be offline and I can't seem to run either of my browsers offline at present. Any more suggestions?

Is there not a simpler way of doing it? I'm aware that you can use Print Screen and then Paste the image into MS Word. That's pretty straightforward but suffers from two major weaknesses - you can only ever select the entire screen, and any text that was there becomes almost impossible to read in Word. Babyboy, I'll experiment with your suggestion and report back here with what I find.

I now use Win2K with SP4. I've been having some problems trying to install a USB-based printer and a USB-based scanner. In particular, the scanner's driver refused to fully install and instead caused my machine to instantly re-boot when the Setup for it completed. The printer installed without difficulty, though. I'm currently suspecting the USB 2.0 driver (OEM), which I installed from my motherboard's supplier's installation CD and which I installed AFTER I had installed SP4. If http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;819332 is anything to go by, it's possible that the OEM USB driver has overwritten the USB driver and related fixes that were in SP4. But I can't be sure. A USB 2.0 driver is definitely installed on my machine but its integrity might not be 100%. It shows in Device Manager as "SiS PCI-to_USB Enhanced Controller A0" and is v.5.1.2600.0. Apparently, it's called oem2.inf. Is that the latest USB2.0 driver, though, as modified by SP4? I've looked in C:\WINNT\inf\oem2.inf and it has the following properties: Size: 7997 bytes (8192 bytes on disk) Modified: 6/2/2002. Can someone who successfully uses USB 2.0 with scanner and printer-type peripherals, with Win2KSP4, please check to see if their inf file matches this one, as it might tell me whether that OEM file has erroneously overwritten the SP4 version or not. Under Win2KSP3, both device drivers installed without problem, so changing to SP4 has definitely been the trigger for this. (I usually install in the order 'Windows service pack, then USB 2.0 after').

For some years I've resisted using Service Pack 4 on my Win2K machine but, stemming from a recent re-formatting of my hard disk, I've now installed it. Trouble is, I'm having a problem installing my Epson flatbed scanner, which is USB2.0. The setup for the scanner's driver completes but when I then connect the scanner's USB cable, Windows fails to install it and I get an immediate re-boot. I didn't have this problem with SP3. I do, of course, have the USB2.0 driver itself pre-installed, and other USB2.0 peroipherals of mine have installed fine, so it could well be a problem with the scanner's driver, rather than anything to do with the USB2.0 driver. I've looked at the constituent USB2.0 files in my Win2K and they're: USB Enhanced Host Controller v5.1.2600.0 PCI to USB Open Host Controller v5.0.2183.1 USB2.0 Root Hub v5.0.2195.6717 and their detailed files are all there in \system32 as well. But have there been any known issues with SP4 and USB2.0? Could SP4 possibly have removed a critical constituent file of USB2.0, perhaps not shown now in Properties? If not, I can be more confident that another Epson driver that I've found will install and work.

Has anyone in these forums ever had any dealings with Sprint.com or, more specifically, with the performance of their servers? As an end-user, I'm wanting to contact them to complain about the extremely poor responses from some of their routing servers on the Internet which have been preventing me from downloading files from an ftp website in Canada (from here in the UK). Whilst my ftp performance, over DSL, everywhere else has been remarkably good, getting files from the Canadian site (available only via the Canadian website's ftp service) has only ever been at 1KB/sec (8K bits/sec) or thereabouts, making even a modest download (a 5MB driver file, say) completely infeasible. One or two traceroutes have revealed no problem between me and my ISP, but some excessive delays between a whole train of Sprintlink servers situated between the UK and North America/Canada appear to be the problem. Sometimes, the delays are so long that the traceroutes don't even complete. I've been in touch with the Canadian site and they say there's no problem at their end. Friends here in the UK who are with different ISPs get very good ftp download performance from the same Canadian site. I've also been in touch with my own ISP but they say that the matter is outside their control, but they do admit that Sprintlink server performance has been an issue with them in the past, especially when Sprint was a carrier for them. A quick google on the Web shows that Sprintlink server performance has indeed been a constant issue with Internet users. It seems just sheer bad luck that my connection to Canada just happens to use Sprintlink servers but surely major service providers like Sprint have an obligation to run these sorts of services efficiently? The servers in question are presumably gateway servers of some kind and I'd therefore imagine that lots of other users are being affected also. I accept that occasionally service providers need to throttle performance to make for more equitable customer performance but this is just ludicrous. Clearly, I'm wanting to contact Sprint to complain, but none of their websites provide any mechanism for doing this, other than for me to make an expensive transatlantic phonecall. Has anyone any useful suggestion to make on this?

Lately, I've been running some experiments to try to discover why it is that my Win2K machine takes so long (2 - 5 secs) to resolve a website and begin to download the first page. I'm using 2M bit ADSL broadband, PPoA, via a router-modem, with my single Win2K machine attached via Ethernet. I also notice exceedingly slow downloads from FTP sites. Apart from that, my raw download and upload speeds are very good. I decided to run the Tweak test at www.dslreports.com (Tests + Tools) but, frankly, the test didn't go all that well and trying new values for the TCP Window, TTL and MTU, in DrTCP, was extremely frustrating, as you have to re-boot each time. The best values for those three (in their order) that I ended up with were: 32767 254 1492 However, I'm far from convinced that these numbers are optimised, especially the TTL value. Has anyone else on this forum who uses Win2K experimented with DrTCP and, if so, what values for TCP Window, TTL, MTU, etc did you end up using?

As I say, I'm pretty well convinced it's a software problem of some sort - maybe a wrong configuration setting in the router that's affecting the resolution of each website's address, or an inherently-slow processor in the router (though I couldn't imagine it to be THAT slow). That said, I don't altogether rule out the possibility of it being caused by noise on the line, as statistically you'd find that SOME users get this problem and SOME don't, and that's exactly what's happening, according to tech forums around the world on this particular router-modem. However, noise tends to be spurious and therefore wouldn't affect EVERY website acquisition on EVERY single occasion.

I don't know where you're getting your figures from, Sampson, but here in the UK, the 'feasible distance' at present for 2M bit/sec ADSL is notionally 3.5km. That's about 2ml. Some ISPs have arrangements with the infrastructure provider (sometimes they're one in the same people, sometimes they're not) where ADSL can be swapped to RDSL. The latter still operates in ADSL mode but extends the capability to about 5.5km. If you're situated that sort of distance away, or even further, the signal will not only be more attenuated and therefore more difficult to keep in sync with the user's modem but also the line will be more susceptible to noise (with the same result), the overall outcome being that more retransmissions of packets will take place. Thus, you're more likely to get a lower overall data rate than the advertised nominal one. Actually, even though I'm somewhere between 4 and 6km from the exchange, my raw maximum download rate is 1.89M bits/sec, which is pretty good for a nominal 2M bit connection. And, as far as I'm aware, that's on pure ADSL, not RDSL. Actually, the attenuation problem (and here I speak as a retired professional electronics engineer) is normally two-fold: pure volt-drops due to length of line and numbers of joints in the line, and frequency-dependent attenuation (analogue bandwidth of the line, down to capacitance and inductance /ft of the line). Thus, the further you move away from the exchange, the greater the overall attenuation. Interestingly, for analogue voice calls, the equipment at the exchange would apply AGC (automatic gain control), which would ensure that your phone would always operate reasonably well, even though you were situated an appreciable distance away. But there's a limit to the amount of AGC that can be applied. I've no idea if AGC is employed in DSL and cable broadband; I somehow doubt it. [if my memory serves me correctly, electrical signals propagate in copper wires at about 0.7nanoseconds /ft. Roughly estimating, that means that there'd be a delay of about 10 microseconds between the exchange and my router-modem].

Yes, I'm using a software firewall as well but it's never given rise to any conflicts. As for the order of turning on things, I've already explored that and it doesn't affect this delay problem. Tests on the Ethernet connection show no problems, either. As for getting my ISP to test out my connection, well, pigs might fly. Regardless, there's software in the router that tells me something of the quality of the line and, whilst that's not brilliant (I'm about 5km from the exchange), it doesn't show any lost packets or collisions. As for the delay being caused simply through distance, I think you need to look at your physics again, as a delay of 2 - 7 secs would mean I'd be 1000s of miles away! It's clearly nothing to do with 'distance from exchange' per se. No, the delay is either due to noise on the line and subsequent retransmissions, a conflict of the settings in my router with those in Windows, or it must be due to some sort of resolution problem. Other owners of the same router have the same problem, but not all, by any means.

As a follow-up, what are: TCP MSS value? Cell Rate (normal, peak, and sustained)? Maximum Burst Rate? Is TCP MSS the same as MTU? Is Max Burst Rate the same as TCP Window (RWIN)? [i'm just wondering whether the slow resolution of websites I'm getting is due to settings in my router (such as above) being perhaps in conflict with settings in Windows. At present, all values in my router for the above are left blank, which I presume will render default values].

Ross, I've now successfully done the pings. Using first my router's LAN IP address, I got a figure of 1472. It was also the figure for successfully pinging my ISP's DNS address (had to temporarily enable that in the NAT firewall). Adding the magic number 28 to that gives me - surprise, surprise - 1500, which is the default value for Win2K/XP. My overall basic settings are now: RWIN = 32767 TTL = 128 MTU = 1500 [Hmm, I'm still getting delays of 2 - 7 secs when I click on a website address, before the browser resolves and then captures it. That remains a mystery].

Ross, I've seen that Ping command quoted elsewhere and, previously, I've tried it but I kept getting 'bad command'. I used an uppercase 'F'; maybe that was the problem. And is that an uppercase 'I' (eye), or a lowercase 'l' (el)? What's 'Public IP Address'? Do you mean 'the LAN IP address of the router'? You say you arrived at a figure of 1458 for your MTU. But is that with Win2K, or with WinXP? It'd help get me into the right ballpark. How do you know which are the smallest and largest packet sizes?

Thanks, theefool, those references are very helpful. By modding the Registry, I've now reduced the TTL value to 128. Actually, the [Adapter ID] in the Registry is not easy to identify, to change or add the MTU value, because if you've got several different modem connections still installed (as I have), eg dial-up modem connections, they're also just alphanumeric Registry folders and you can't tell which is which. Regarding the actual MTU value, whilst that Winguides article recommends 1500 for ADSL using PPoA, there seem to be lots of users who maintain that a lower figure is required, anything from about 1454 to 1492. Sampson, that's an interesting theory about line noise and how it might be causing retransmissions.

I've recently switched to ADSL broadband and have been trying to assess my in-practice download speed. I'm supposed to be on an ADSL 2M bits/sec connection but, doing some simple calculations on a couple of sizeable file downloads the other day (Windows updates) indicated that my download speed was nearer 500K bits/sec, about a quarter of what it should be. And no, I'm not stupidly loading the line or anything like that. My router-modem shows the telecomms company's ADSL line speeds as 2M bits/sec and 256K bits/sec for downstream and upstream but I'm fairly sure it got those figures just from the initial synchronisation, not from any longterm download/upload assessment. Now, I'm no network expert but I do know that latency, contention and line quality do lower the effective download and upload speeds, from the theoretical values - but to a QUARTER?! No way, surely?! So, how can I make a convincing measurement of my download speed? Is not what I've done good enough? Can someone suggest a utility that'll do that for me, preferably one that doesn't require Java (as I use Firefox and have got Java disabled)? I'd have thought that the speed indicated in Firefox, when you do a download, was reasonably accurate. Is that not so?

I've been told that you can get a good idea of the line speed and where bottlenecks might be occurring by pinging one or more websites, or using tracert. You can do these via command prompt or, in my case, through a diagnostic in the router-modem. However, pinging doesn't seem to work. I guess most websites block pings. At present, when I use the tester at 'bandwidthplace', I'm getting download figures varying from 900K bits/sec to 1.2M bits/sec; I've tried on different days, at different times. My nominal ADSL speed is supposed to be 2M bits/sec. I'd expect SOME overheads and SOME losses, but THAT HIGH?!!!!! Note that 'bandwidthplace' is free only three times per month. For those who reside in the UK, I'd be interested to see what results they get if the use the speedchecker at www.adslguide.org.uk. A friend of mine, supposedly on a 1M bit line, gets tip-top results on that (reporting 2M bits/sec and virtually zero losses, yet he lives nearby), which frankly I don't believe. When I tried it myself, it also gave tip-top results, which is just nonsense. My connection (and that of my friend) simply can't be that good, because we're between 4 and 6km from the exchange and are on 50:1 contention. So, for any of you UK bods, try that one out. Be careful how you publish the results here, though, as some test results, with these speedcheckers, show your IP address in it.

gtwannabe, Yes, that 'bandwidthplace' speedchecker is much more straightforward and does work. However, I'm not so sure that you and I are interpreting the results correctly. I don't profess to be a total expert when it comes to networks and broadband but it seems to me that the speed can change (even more so than with dial-up), according to the conditions on the Internet at the time. In other words, the speed's affected, in particular, by: the physical quality of the line back to the local exchange; contention on the line (usually 50:1 on non-business accounts); latency; no. of hops between servers; how busy a particular website is; administrative resrictions on certain websites. Also, some ISPs - and I can only cite what I've observed here in the UK - seem to have free licence with the naming of their various subscriber accounts, starting with a 500Kbit account and going up to, say, a 2Mbit account. In practice it can mean that all those accounts are run the same, but it's just that, if you're nominally on a 2M bit account, the speed can drop to something far below that (sometimes down to dial-up speeds) if contention gets high enough. My personal account is supposed to be a 2M bit one and I thought until today that my ACTUAL download speed was 1.56M bits/sec, but using the 'bandwidthplace' test today, I found it to be only 1.2M bits/sec. Thus, for the reasons I've given, I don't doubt that re-running the test at a different time will render a different figure.

I tried that Firefox extension but it was useless. The file never seemed to download, even though Firefox showed it happening. The file just disappeared.

Thanks, that looks jolly useful.

Actually, that 500K bits/sec figure was as of yesterday, when my ADSL connection first went live. I've now done a dummy download, using Firefox and the average figure it showed on a 4.7MB file (Firefox 1.0.3) was 195kB/sec. I take that to be bytes/sec. Well, 195kB/sec = 1560Kbits/sec = 1.56M bits/sec. That's more like it! Still a bit low, but then I'm about 3 - 5km from my local exchange, so I can't expect miracles.

Is the connectivity of ADSL broadband wires polarity-sensitive? In other words, if the polarity of the two wires arriving at your modem from the local exchange happens to be the wrong way around, will the connection work less well? It's certainly the case that dial-up is polarity-sensitive, as I confirmed that with mine. I suspect that it's more sensitive the further away you're situated from the exchange. Has anyone any convincing arguments on this? ADSL is supposed to be 'assymetrical', after all, isn't it?

Thanks Andy. That's quite informative. Actually, I already knew of the existence of that ADSL Guide website and found nothing there that touches on the issue of polarity sensitivity.