Instructions
Things You'll Need:
- Calculator
- Writing utensil
- Paper
- 1
Confirm what connection speed you have. You can run Internet connection speed tests free from a variety of sites. Alternatively, call your ISP provider and ask the company to provide your speeds. When doing the speed tests or contacting the ISP, you need your download and upload values. This information is crucial to provide the most accurate values for the various settings you will be changing. Use the format kbps to record the values. Speed tests often provide you this value.
ISPs typically sell packages in megabits, for example, 8 mb download and 1 mb upload. If you have this information, multiply your advertised download speed by 1024. Therefore, in this example, 8192 would be the kbps.
Further examples include:
1 mb = 1024 kbps
4 mb = 4096 kbps
8 mb = 8192 kbps
Write down the value you have obtained. - 2
Click on "Start" and "Run," and in the run box type: "CMD" without the quotes. This opens your command prompt. Minimize your command prompt and open Internet Explorer. Navigate to any website of your choosing and download a large file. The file should be at least 100 mb in size. The reason you are downloading a file is to put stress and use on your connection. This increases your latency, which is the response time it takes to send to and receive a request from a server
- 3
Maximize your command prompt. You are now ready to test your latency while the connection is under stress. Type the following command after the prompt: "Ping --t 50 www.google.com," without the quotes. Press "Enter" on your keyboard to execute the command. Following the execution of the command, you will see lines that begin with the phrase "Reply from." This indicates that you are sending a request and receiving a response back and forth to the Google server. This command will run the ping test 50 times and then the measured latency statistics will appear at the end.
- 4
Look at the statistics for your Ping once it has finished. The first important piece of information is the "Lost" value. Ideally, this should be at 0 percent. If you have over 10 percent loss, you should run the command a few more times to see if it is consistently dropping packets. If your connection is consistently dropping over 10 percent, contact your ISP and advise the help desk.
The next statistics you should notate are the values labeled: Min, Max, and Avg. These numbers measuring in milliseconds are the minimum, maximum and average times you obtained while running the command.
Ideally, even when downloading, the three values should be close together. The closer the numbers are together, the more consistent and stable your connection is. Since you were downloading while running the command, your numbers will not be as low or stable as if you had run this command while your connection was idle. Write down your average ping, which is the number next to "AVG," and then you may cancel the download, but leave your command prompt open.
Note: For results that are even more accurate, you may try sending the ping -t 50 request to multiple different websites. Then average all of the collective averages together. The more you do, the more accurate a number you will receive. Even more, you may run this test a few times a day over a week, specifically at times when you most use your connection. Then combine all the results into one average.
Some guides suggest running a ping test without downloading a file and simply multiplying your average or max values by 1.5. This method may appear to be a more common way to figure the mean average, but it is vastly less accurate. There is no logical bearing for using a random value such as 1.5 to multiply times your ping. All this does is attempt to anticipate what your connection will have as a maximum average. Some connections react differently to different conditions; the only certain way to know your specific theoretical max average value is to run the ping while under connection use. - 5
Keep the command prompt open. Now find and document your MTU (maximum transmission unit) size. The MTU is the maximum packet size you can receive through a single transmission. Setting this value too high causes the received packet to be broken down and be rebuilt, which lowers overall throughput.
Having successfully used the command to obtain your average latency, you should be more familiar with what to expect using the command. To find your MTU you can also use a variant of ping.
In the command prompt, type: "Ping -f -l 1472 www.google.com" and press "Enter." If you get "ping replies," that is all you had to do. Just add 28 to this number and write this down with the rest of the information you have gathered. In this case, the value would be 1472 + 28 = 1500 MTU.
If you are seeing the message "packet needs to be fragmented," reduce 1472 by 10 and ping again (Ping -f -l 1462 www.google.com). Continue doing this until you start receiving replies. Then continually bump the number up by 1, until you find the largest number that receives replies. Add 28 to this number and write it down. - 6
Minimize your command prompt. Click on "Start" then "Run" and type: "Regedit" without the quotes to open your Windows registry editor. For purposes herein, navigate to a couple of sections of the registry. If you see something that says "Hkey_Local_machine\Software" in the steps, click on that particular folder (Hkey_local_machine) and then navigate to the next folder, which in this example would be "Software."
Be advised that making incorrect modifications to your Windows Registry can potentially damage your operating system. Always double-check these instructions and ensure you are modifying only what you see here. - 7
Use a calculator or the Windows calculator (Start menu, Accessories)
to modify your first value, the RWIN.
RWIN stands for Receive Window. The value you set for this is the total amount of data that your computer accepts from a server. Optimally, you want this value to be as close as possible to the maximum theoretical average your connection provides. This ensures a continuous amount of packet flow for high efficiency of the connection and is the most important tweak.
Calculate the RWIN: multiply your AVG recorded ping by your kbps, then divide that value by 8.
Formula: AVG Ping x Bandwidth in kbps / 8 = RWIN
Example: (105 ping and 4mb connection): 105ms x 4096kbps= 430080 / 8 = 53760 RWIN
Calculate your RWIN, double check the numbers then continue. - 8
Maximize your registry editor and change the value. Navigate to "Hkey_local_machine\system\currentcontrolset\services\Tcpip\Parameters
Right mouse click on "Parameters," select "New DWORD" and name the DWORD exactly as the following: "TcpWindowSize" without the quotes. Enter the calculated RWIN value. Put a dot in the radio button marked "decimal."
While still in the same section of the registry "Parameters" look for the DWORD named, "Tcp1323Opts" Right click on that DWORD and select "Modify." Change the value from 0 to 1. - 9
Stay in the registry editor. Enter the MTU value you obtained. Navigate to: "Hkey_local_machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\ (Adapter ID)"
Regarding "Adapter ID," there may be more than one adapter shown. If this is the case, click on each one and look at the value "Adapter Name" to confirm which one is what you use to connect your broadband to the computer.
Within the Adapter ID, look on the right hand column of the registry editor for a value named MTU. Check the listed value for MTU. If it is already correct, there is nothing to modify. If the value listed is different from what you obtained from the MTU test, change it. Right click on the DWORD named MTU and select "Modify." Change the existing decimal to the MTU you have written down. - 10
Close the registry editor after entering the MTU value. In Internet Explorer, click on "Tools," then select "Internet Options." On the "General" tab, go to "Browsing History" and click on the "Settings" button. Check or change the following settings to these values:
Check for newer versions of stored pages: "Automatically."
Amount of disk space to use: If you mainly browse for research use: 50. If you watch a lot of videos, such as YouTube, use 200.
Delete the files that are currently stored: click "delete files," next to the Settings button. If this is the first time you have done this, it might take a couple of minutes. After this process completes, close Internet Explorer. - 11
Maximize the Command Prompt. At the prompt type: " Ipconfig /flushdns " without the quotes. Press "Enter" to execute the command. If successful, a message reads:. "Successfully flushed the DNS resolver cache."
Close the command prompt. - 12
Restart your computer so all these all changes take effect. Upon restart, Windows XP will have the important TCP/IP settings optimized specifically for your connection speed.
Tips & Warnings
- Some guides may tell you to keep your RWIN as a multiple of your MSS. This is not necessary on large receive window sizes. The only downside of not having it as a multiple is possibly having an extra CPU cycle to check the segment size. Having the RWIN the exact size you calculated based on your connection calculations is preferred.
- Be cautious when researching Internet related tweaks. There is a lot of false information out there as well as programs that promise to do this for you. While there are certainly some good programs, many others contain incorrect settings or are not necessary to change. Even worse, some of these programs contain viruses or spyware. The Windows network stack is not a constant; most other values change according to the bandwidth capability you have. (By Mike Benson, eHow Contributor, updated: May 7, 2010)
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