DSL timing out?

[figarowa]

hi fellas, my g/f pc is wired into a simple lan, via a etherlink hub, and to the generic sprint DSL modem, the problem is that when browsing mainly with IE 6.0 the connection will work for a while if you stay active, but then will act sporadic, and taking anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute to resume loading pages, and it is extremely annoying, win poet is used to connect to sprint, the pc is a old compaq, running 98 SE, and i have reloaded IE several times but it doesn't respond, with netscape, the net acts similarly....any ideas?, the system has i think 96 megs of ram, as i robbed some from another system.

[ktkendall]

I would think that if you go with a better networking device such as linksys besfr41 with built in 4 port switch you will see vast improvement. You can get the winpoet off of your machine then and will have more of an actual LAN with the linksys device functioning as a gateway. I would guess the hub is the problem as it is broadcasting the packets to all the devices. I don't think the DSL is designed to work going into a hub.

[figarowa]

update, her computer is the only one connected on the network, when other pc's are connected to the other ports, those work just fine...............

[ktkendall]

How old is the PC, what processor. I've seen those old 486 and early pentium machines act that way just cause they are not fast enough to deal with web pages. Your right , if the other machines work well then prob is specific to that machine, are the other ones faster newer pc's?? I think I know where Shippensburg is, but it's been a while, I'm in Latrobe, about 40 mi. east of Pittsburgh!

[figarowa]

yo kendell, the pc is a amd k6-2 running at 500mhz, with 152 megs of ram...some of it is used for video ram, i know its not the fastest machine, but there is definately a problem either with the pc itself be it hardware or software or the actual connection....she plans on getting a newer pc soon, and if i had an extra NIC laying around, id use it on my box but my board has become flaky and won't take any more pci card without crashing....
I know where latrobe is, i wanted to go to the Rolling Rock town fair, but its a tad pricey and i heard its insane there during the concerts, ship is near gettysburg, small little college town..

[ktkendall]

That PC should run OK on the net, what does she have for network card in hers?? Is it an intergrated NIC?? I would start poking around network properties, perhaps compare to the other PC's and see what is different. Maybe full duplex is not enabled, or something else under network properties either for the NIC or the TCP/IP properties of that NIC!! My wife has sister up in Chambersburg, we trek over there every now and then. I love the mountains of PA.