March 2008

How to speed up your interface to the Internet is always a worthwhile endeavor. For quite some time I had been experiencing less-than-optimal responses from my Internet connection. I was paying for 1.5 Mb/Second but often had been receiving about half that. As a result, I had been contemplating paying more to the ISP or, if that was too expensive, transferring to Sonic.net. Then an online course at cnet.com (see URL below) stated that disabling the QoS (Quality of Service) option in XP would back off the monitoring function of QoS thereby allowing for the full use of the available bandwidth. Included in the article was a timing test that, upon repeated use, showed my receiving about 0.4 Mb/S. Then I made a backup and stopped QoS per the instructions below. Upon rerunning the speed test, my speed tripled to about 1.2 Mb/s on a consistent basis. Microsoft doesn’t agree. The second URL below is a review of the efficacy of the QoS cessation, but I have to believe that the proof is in the results, which for me were dramatic. So use the speed meter to see if you are getting what you are paying for and act accordingly. At worst there is no downside as there is no penalty if the shutting down of QoS does no good. The Instructions for disabling QoS depend on your XP version: ·

If you have Windows XP Professional,follow these instructions to disable QoS:

• Click Start, then Run.
• Enter gpedit.msc in the box.
• Under “Local Computer Policy,” click the plus sign next to “Computer Configuration,” then the one next to “Administrative Templates.”
• Click the plus sign next to “Network” and select “QoS Packet Scheduler.”
• In the right-hand box, double-click on “Limit Reservable Bandwidth.”
• On the Settings tab, choose Enabled.
• In the “Bandwidth Limit %” box, set it to 0%. (Do not leave it blank.)
• Click OK.

If you have Windows XP Home Edition, follow these instructions to disable QoS:

• Click Start and then the “Settings” option.
• Select the Control Panel, and open up “Network Connections”
• Right-click “Local Area Connection” and choose Properties.
• On the General tab, uncheck QoS.

URLs referenced above:
· http://speed-up-windows-pc.classes.cnet.com/lesson-6
· http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316666