Can anyone explain this then?

[zeitghost]

Acer laptop... (belongs to my nephew).

Using my dialup with ntlhell...

Originally plugged it in next door with about 20m of telephone cable from my ntl master socket to the laptop modem port.

Connects at 53k.

(Or so it said).

Works, says I... lets try it next door now.

Go next door.

Now have about 10m of cable direct to the master socket.

Duly connects at 32.1k. Sort of.

Keeps timing out & is unusable.

Ok.

Try different modem cable.

Connects at 33k & times out etc.

Expletives used.

Go back next door says I, so we're back with the 20m of cable (10m of extension reel & 10m of modem cable).

Now connects at 48k & is just about usable.

I blamed the modem in the laptop, coz it's very likely to be a crap software modem, whereas all the ones I use are proper hardware modems made for Real Lizards to use.

Anyone else got any ideas?

His modem does make a curious noise during the training phase that I've never heard before...

Also my old Tosh laptop never ever managed more than 33k, but did (with win98 & ie5) seem to work ok... where as the Acer with XP & IE7 is practically unusable.

[BrilloPad]

Acer laptop... (belongs to my nephew).

Using my dialup with ntlhell...

Originally plugged it in next door with about 20m of telephone cable from my ntl master socket to the laptop modem port.

Connects at 53k.

(Or so it said).

Works, says I... lets try it next door now.

Go next door.

Now have about 10m of cable direct to the master socket.

Duly connects at 32.1k. Sort of.

Keeps timing out & is unusable.

Ok.

Try different modem cable.

Connects at 33k & times out etc.

Expletives used.

Go back next door says I, so we're back with the 20m of cable (10m of extension reel & 10m of modem cable).

Now connects at 48k & is just about usable.

I blamed the modem in the laptop, coz it's very likely to be a crap software modem, whereas all the ones I use are proper hardware modems made for Real Lizards to use.

Anyone else got any ideas?

His modem does make a curious noise during the training phase that I've never heard before...

Also my old Tosh laptop never ever managed more than 33k, but did (with win98 & ie5) seem to work ok... where as the Acer with XP & IE7 is practically unusable.

I blame sunspots.

[miffy]

Anyone else got any ideas?

Sounds like it could be global warming. A tax must be applied as necessary

His modem does make a curious noise during the training phase that I've never heard before...

That could be because the modem is V92 where as the other modems you've tried are V90 (or vice-versa). I'm no modem expert though and it's been about 8 years since I used one.

One of my friends used to have lots of problems with modems on his phone line before broadband came along (although that was a BT line miles from the exchange).

It could be the modem and like you say Winmodems aren't brilliant. They do have a country setting in their setup programs, you could do worse than check it's not set to China or something daft

[zeitghost]

Thanks for that, will do.

With 20 metres of telephone cable about the place, I'm worrying about strangling the cat by mistake.

The other thing that struck me is the colour of the electrickery.

This house is on one phase, while the house next door will be on a different phase...

Maybe it only likes Blue phase electrickery & not Red.

(Nephew is a rabid Tory)...

[xoggoth]

Geeez, 1st MS DOS questions, now dial up modems. What is it today, back to the good old days? Somewhere in the attic I have 100ft of RS232 cable if that would help. I think I have a 8 1/4" 320kb floppy disc drive somewhere too.

[zeitghost]

I've got a couple of 160k single sided 35 track 5.25" disks upstairs.

One of them emitted smoke the last time they were plugged in

I've also got a couple of extremely defunct 8" drives in the shed. I have no idea why.

[dmini]

What you are forgetting is the length of the nthell cabling to the house - no guarantee as to the route the cable has taken etc. That bit of extra cable may be the issue. Speaking as someone who ended up on a "too long" cable from them which took months for them to sort out - they broke their own rules about distance from their boxes.
If laptop plugged DIRECTLY into one master socket is different to laptop plugged DIRECTLY into master socket in house next door, then I would put it down to cabling issues.
IE7 has got lots of built in additions - suspect these are affecting performance as well. Dont forget to switch on deleting all cached pages on exiting ie though, if you havent already.

[where did my id go?]

Assuming that you are talking about plugging it into his master socket and your master socket then I would be looking at cabling issues.

Are NTL phone sockets like BT ones in that you can pull off the faceplate and access the 'real' master socket inside - thereby disconnecting all your internal house wiring?

If so have you tried this?

Are there any other devices at all connected? Any other cables connected to the phone socket?

Rule out crap house wiring by removing it then you're looking at crap ntl wiring.
good luck with that one.

[zeitghost]

It's plugged into the same master socket when it's next door & in here... next door is my BT line, and ntl no longer let you dial in from a BT line apparently.

As I mentioned, my theory is the colour of the electrickery coming out of the mains. (No, not seriously).

It is very odd though.

Are NTL phone sockets like BT ones in that you can pull off the faceplate and access the 'real' master socket inside - thereby disconnecting all your internal house wiring?

Er.... no.

It's all screwed together with a medusa's head of wiring inside....

I unscrewed the faceplate, then rapidly put it back.