Question for all ye tech heads

Dundhoone

Anyone know if an ordinary dial-up connection is disabled once you get BB on your line?

we have 2 pcs , ones too old for BB (win95 machine) but its still used for a bit of word and web, will this machine still be able to use its dial up if the line has been broadband enabled for the other machine?

By the way the sales guy in Esat i was talking too reckoned the basic BB package was dropping price by 20% before the end of the month, in case anyones interested!

secret_squirrel

Nope you - even better you can use them simultaneuously.

rymus

a pc too old for broadband? Sure.. maybe if it's a 386 with 8mb ram but a win95 machine with any kind of functional network card will work no hassle if you get a router

diarmo

I would prefer if they increased speed/bandwidth and did another PR round with a personality like Eircom did.

The hopping "Free" against a blue background only gets you so far!

Also pushing that you can access something more interesting by linking the offer with iTunes or an online DVD company would push incentive for the average punter with children I'm sure.

Im sure the 56k dial-up would work as DSL is transmitted at Ultra high frequency and that is why a low pass filter needs to be installed in any phone lines when Broadband is active.

CiaranC

The W95 PC is not "too old for broadband". Get a router, buy a nic for both pcs and connect both to the router.

Dundhoone

cheers all,

was just thinking no usb on Win 95 but i could get me a network card alright, its still a dinosaur though ! P266 64mb ram 8gb Hd ......its must be nearly a decade old and no bother to it.

still if the dial up will still work for it that would be great.

diarmo

P266 64mb ram 8gb Hd

Thats fine and add a NIC with a €30 router and you should be fine as long as you only run your Broadband using Win95 as any other progs will make all your RAM overflow go through the harddrive swap file and slow your computer to a snails pace.

rymus

Dundhoone wrote:

still if the dial up will still work for it that would be great.

Yeah the dialup would work.. but why pay for DSL for one computer and pay again for dialup for another computer when both can use the dsl with no problems? Thats just madness

Kristok

it will work but if the modem is 56k you might need to reduce its initial dial up speed to 33k so as to make it easier to connect with the reduced line bandwidth. Broadband isnt on a super high frequancy its transmitted just above the 33k used for phone calls so some 56k modems will have problems connecting (usually the cheap ones)

causal

Dundhoone wrote:

was just thinking no usb on Win 95 but i could get me a network card alright, its still a dinosaur though ! P266 64mb ram 8gb Hd ......its must be nearly a decade old and no bother to it.

Later versions of Win95 did have USB support.
I had a Pentium Pro 200MHz, 48MB RAM, 2GB harddrive hooked up to broadband via ethernet. No problemo. It'll be slower than a modern machine obviously but still worked fine for broadband web. I upgraded the RAM to a whopping 96MB, and stuck in an old 20GB hdd and that helped it breathe.

The only snag that you will find is that recent software just won't run on such a low spec machine and/or won't run on Win95 e.g. forget Firefox and IE6. Microsoft don't support Win95 anymore and this summer they're winding down support for Win 98.

I'd advise that, if you intend using it for awhile, that you get the latest OS and latest versions of all software while you can.
I'm sure there's plenty of Linux guys saying download Fedora 1/2/3.

hth,
causal

Dundhoone

Thanks,

Yeah im lucky enough to have a second machine which is a fair bit more up to date, I'll try out this new fangled BB thingy and see how it goes

I'll give "the dinosaur" a bit of enhancement if needs be , I know its madness to want to keep a dial up connection if I have BB but it hurts to spend cash on a near ten year old pc (which belongs to my sister) ..... im such a tight wad eh!

causal

I presume it takes EDO RAM - that's going for next to nothing on eBay these days.

A nic card should be less than 10 euro.

Make it her birthday present

causal

daymobrew

Dundhoone wrote:

I know its madness to want to keep a dial up connection if I have BB but it hurts to spend cash on a near ten year old pc (which belongs to my sister) ..... im such a tight wad eh!

Investing in a network card (a NIC) and router will eventually pay for itself and Internet access from the old PC will be a lot more pleasant (aka faster).

The router might also do NATing (Network Address Translation) which, AFAIK, help protect your computers from external hacking attacks - other computers won't be able to see your computers. It won't protect you from viruses that you inadvertently download.

causal

Ideally you'd get a Gateway/switch with minimum firewall NAT, DHCP.
Other features may be UPnP, PrintServer, VPN etc.

The NAT allows you to share your IP address amongst several PC's without getting the dreaded "IP Address Conflict".

causal