Speed up XP Internet connectivity.

unnameduser

I came across the below tip on a computer blog. Just wondering has anyone found where it has any real noticeable effect on internet speeds.

Here are some helpful tips on giving yourself an Internet speed boost. I especially like Tip #4:


"Windows XP Professional reserves 20% of your bandwidth for services like updates or spyware checks. If you would like to exploit this reserve, do the following:
1. Click [Windows] + [R] and type gpedit.msc in the Run window.
2. Under Computer Configuration expand the Administrative Templates.
3. Go to Network and click the QoS Packet Scheduler tab.
4. Double-click on Limit Reservable Bandwidth and enable it.
5. Finally change the Bandwidth limit to 0% and click Apply.
6. Reboot your computer and enjoy."

unnameduser

update:

I ran tests www.speedtest.net. There was no improvement as such. I wonder has anyone else had some success with this?

Anti

just did it here, no improvement at all.

Lazarus2.0

I remember seeing that suggestion a few years ago . The thread had a lot of respondents and those that came back after trying it out reported no or extremely slight improvement (apart from the OP of that thread whose connection suddenly blazed :eek:) .
I recall the crux of the matter was indeed step 4 - limiting reserveable bandwidth . I cant for the life of me remember what the bandwidth was reserved for but it was something inocuous and certainly wasnt a constant connection throttling .
Mr Gates took a fair bit of abuse when that was doing the rounds . Ah , those were the days ...

unnameduser

I was surprised to see this "tip" as I trawl through tweaking websites etc and I have never seen it before. Worth a look all the same.

vibe666

afaik, the limiting reservable bandwidth thing is to do with windows QoS (quality of service), but it will have no effect 99% of the time.

it basically gives windows the option to reserve some of your network bandwidth for critical system use should it be required, but if it's not required you get to use all of it anyway, so the vest majority of the time you'll probably never even see any difference.

i'm not even sure what windows deems critical in this respect, so who knows when it would even come int effect, if ever.

you could also just untick the QoS option in your network properties for the connection used for internet access which would effectively accomplish the same thing altho as I said, it's unlikely to have any effect anyway.

there are lots of applications which will 'optimise' your internet connection based on what connection you use, usually tweaking the MTU size etc. but after a while of using them I didn't really see any kind of improvements so I stopped doing it unless it happened to be a quick 'one click' part of an all in one app like tuneup utilities or something similar (which is actually pretty good).