Technical Support
Troubleshooting Unreliable Connections
The following information gives suggestions on troubleshooting connections which either don't always connect, are dropped a minute or so after connection, or are dropped during downloads. Remember -- our system will automatically drop connections which are INACTIVE after 9 minutes. More info on this can be found here. This document does NOT pertain to these situations - as this is normal.
MAXIMUM SPEED SET TOO HIGH
Depending on the quality of transmission on your phone line, sometimes your modem may be
trying to connect at a speed higher than is possible. Although today's modems
generally support speeds of 28.8kbps or 33.6kbps, modems can sometimes reach speeds as
high as 115.2kbps using compression. Sometimes the combination of your modem and
phone lines simply can't handle this speed (remember - phone lines are designed for VOICE
transmission, not DATA transmission, and phone companies do not guarantee the speed of
data transmission on your phone line.) As a result of this, your modem may dial, but
then not connect (You may get a message such as 'The computer you are dialing is not
answering - try again later" or "unable to connect" or something similar.)
Or your modem may initially connect, but then disconnect a few seconds (or minutes)
later, or maybe even when viewing a web page or downloading a file. Sometimes this
problem can be corrected by lowering the maximum speed at which your modem is told to
connect. This will not normally lower your actual connect speeds, it will just allow
you to stay reliably connected. The following steps detail how you can lower your
maximum connected speed to help make your connection more reliable:
1) Double-click on My Computer
2) Double-click on Dial-Up Networking
3) You should have two icons: "Make New Connection" and the icon you use to
dial-in to our service. This may be called "CAT internet dialer" or "username's
Dialer " (or whatever you named it.)
4) Click ONCE (don't double-click) on your dialer icon to highlight it, then select
Properties from the File menu.
5) Click on the "Configure" button towards the bottom of the window.
6) On this screen you are going to want to change the "Maximum Speed" setting.
This is normally set at 115200 by default. Drop this down to the next lower
setting (57600) then click OK to save your changes. You will then need to click OK
again on the next screen.
7) Try dialing in again and see if it corrects your problem. If not, go back through
the steps above and drop the maximum speed down one more notch (the next lower would be
38400). Keep doing this until you are down to 19200. If you get to this speed
and it hasn't corrected your problem, then you can be sure that this was not the problem
in the first place. If it corrects your problem, leave this speed at the new
setting. If it does NOT correct it, then you can jump the speed back up to 57,600
or 115,200 if you want. Or you may want to try the next step (Turn Compression Off),
while keeping the lower maximum speed as set in this section. In general, if your
speed is set to 38400 (or higher), it should not noticeably lower your actual download
speeds.
TURN COMPRESSION OFF
This is in a way related to the above problem. Sometimes by using compression, it will not allow you to have a reliable connection. This is not really a common problem, but it can correct connection problems in some cases. The following steps detail how to turn compression off.
1) Double-click on My Computer
2) Double-click on Dial-Up Networking
3) You should have two icons: "Make New Connection" and the icon you use to
dial-in to our service. This may be called "CAT internet dialer" or "username's
Dialer " (or whatever you named it.)
4) Click ONCE (don't double-click) on your dialer icon to highlight it, then select
Properties from the File menu.
5) Click on the "Server Types" tab.
6) Uncheck the box next to "Enable Software Compression"
7) Click OK to save your changes.
8) Try dialing in to see if this corrects your problem.
Once again, this is yet another type of compression. it is not very common for this to correct connection problems, but it's worth a try.
TURN IP HEADER COMPRESSION OFF
1) Double-click on My Computer
2) Double-click on Dial-Up Networking
3) You should have two icons: "Make New Connection" and the icon you use to
dial-in to our service. This may be called "CAT internet dialer" or "username's
Dialer " (or whatever you named it.)
4) Click ONCE (don't double-click) on your dialer icon to highlight it, then select
Properties from the File menu.
5) Click on the "Server Types" tab.
6) Click the "TCP/IP" settings button.
7) Uncheck the box "IP Header Compression"
8) Click OK to save your changes.
9) Click OK again.
10) Try dialing in to see if this corrects your problem.
If you have checked all of your settings as described in "Troubleshooting Dial-Up Connections", and have tried all of these steps -- but are still having problems -- it is possible that either your modem is defective, or that it is simply does not communicate well with the modems on our end. It is very rare that your modem would have have trouble communicating with our modems when set to the proper speed. And normally, if your modem is defective ... it won't work at all -- (although this is not always the case.) If you believe your modem for some reason is not communicating properly with our modems, you can try dialing into 946-8500 instead of 940-6942. This will skip our first bank of modems (new ones) and connect you to our second back, which are a different type of modem.
Give us a call if you have gone through all of our support documents, and are still having difficulties. Our technical support can be reached via Email at support@aasdcat.com, or at 814-946-8524.
Troy Anderson
Network Engineer / Support
The Center for Advanced Technologies
3/27/98
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