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Do you ever get the feeling that someone out there is giving these tips to your customers, friends, and family? I worked for a dial up internet company in 2007 and this was the status quo.

1. Never restart your computer

Restarting your computer is dangerous and should only be done under the direction of a trained technician. There's the remote possibility that your problem is just a quirk with Windows, but you had better call into tech support so they can walk you through the rebooting process anyhow.

2. If you don’t know what OS you have, make your best guess

If you are not sure if you have Windows 97 or Windows 2000 XP, go ahead and give the technician both answers. This gives him all the information he needs to develop an effective troubleshooting strategy.       More...

Disconnections and Staying on the Straight and Narrow(band) 

You're just surfing along happily when all of a sudden you get disconnected. Or maybe 30 minutes into writing an e-mail you lose everything. These are frustrating moments to experience. My first reaction is usually to blame the dial up provider, but it’s not always their fault. There are many potential causes for disconnections, so I’m providing a long list of them here. More...

Why is my dial up SOOOOooOOOoOoOOoo slow?

If you are using dial up internet and your connection is connecting at less than 40kb/s or has a high connection speed but all your pages still load slowly, you came to the right place! Here are some things to check before you throw your computer out the window.

Low Connection Speed:

Old phone lines

If your phone lines are old, then you may have to call your phone company and complain until they come out to fix them. It is hard for your computer to establish a good connection with your ISP if it has to go through lines that are in bad shape. If you have new phone lines outside your house, your lines in-house may still be old. Replace these and you should be good to go.

Noisy phone lines

Along these same lines (no pun intended) are noisy phone lines. If you notice static on the line when you make normal phone calls, then your computer won't be able to establish a good connection with your ISP. Sometimes the phone company can install filters on the lines to reduce noise. More...