Okay, I finally got on the internet using a service I highly recommend to anyone in the New England area, www.freedialup.org. Anyway, I seem to be having problems with downloads. Even though I'm connected at 38.4K, whenever I download something the speed never goes higher than 3K, and many times it gradually sinks as the download goes on. I'm only using IE 3.03 SP1, and I'm thinking it might be a browser problem since this is pretty old, though it seems to have no speed problems with any of the web pages I've visited. Any suggestions?

Just upgraded to IE 5.0.1, and the download speed issue is still there. But now, the "transfer rate" estimation goes crazy, sometimes starting higher than normal and working its way down to 3K, sometimes starting at 0K and working its way up, while the actual download speed does not visibly change. Why is my download speed going at 1/12 of my connection speed? P.S. I'm having to type this from another computer, as now whenever I come to this page it causes a GPF for some reason. I think it's because the ad on the right side of the page overflows into the scroll bar.

Are you confusing kilobits with kilobytes? Read this page: http://www.aibn.com/help/FAQ/speed.html GPFs: Increase stack statement in config.sys to something like 9,512 or 18,256 In autoexec you need: set temp= (a valid directory here) Run scandisk or Norton Disk doctor. Have only one WINSOCK.DLL in your path... as in Windows or winsock directory. Run a permanent swapfile. For more breakpoints, add: MaxBPs=768 to [368enh] section of SYSTEM.INI If you have a ton of Windows True Type fonts, disable ones not often used (but not System, Times New Roman, Courier New, or Arial). Try Netscape 4.08 as your browser. Sort of biased...I never really liked IE :-) Search on Internet for more ideas. Good luck.

Ah, thanks for the info. My download speeds are where they should be, though a bandwidth test reports 28K on my 56K modem. Must be because I'm dialing from out of town, has to go through a bunch more routers and such, I'll test it again when I get home. I did all the stuff you suggested and hopefully it'll help, except for setting up a "permanent swapfile" which I have no idea how to do or even what it means in relation to Win3.1x. P.S. The GPF is actually caused by moving the mouse cursor over any one of the input fields in the reply form; hitting "Ignore" causes it to continue normally, but it has the effect of not letting me reply at all on that connection. P.P.S. Whenever I try to go to the Windows Update website to get some patches or something for this leaky browser, it does something and then claims the page isn't there, when I know full well that it is, and can verify it using another connection. Does the Update website have a problem with old computers? If so, where else could I get patches of this type?