poor internet connection

[mrcaptainbob]

This is my ongoing problem: It's a rainy day, so I was 'told' to "FIX THAT COMPUTER OF YOURS!".
It's an HP Pavilion 8699F running W98 and works very well for my purposes.
I use PeoplePC and then use Firefox.
Under tools the connection settings shows:
*Manual Configuration
HTTP Proxy: Localhost port 8080
all boxes are blank untill:
No Proxy for: Localhost, 127.0.0.1

Also, the System resources are at 67%.
When first starting PeoplePC it does connect but fails to load the page. There's still a connection, however. I'm knowledgeable enough about some of this, but know that I can be very destructive , too! What am I missing? At first I thought it was a Mozilla issue, but discarded that thinking when considering that PeoplePC won't even load in it's own page.
HELP!!

[HayZee518]

let your modem configure itself. only time you need to do it manually is when you use a lan and another machine shares the connection. put your settings in [modem] to automatic

[mrcaptainbob]

I like the idea of it doing automaticlly. What settings do I change, Hayzee? And...what could have happened to have caused it to change?

[HayZee518]

modems have a protocal called a checksum and a handshake. the machine connects to the remote machine and checks itself. a packet from your computer is sent out to the remote received and is checked. if something is missing it attempts to resend the packet. if it detects something missing it shuts down. this is the checksum part. the bleeps you hear is the handshake part. the connect is what's called SSL or secure sockets layer. look in your win 98 settings for modem and check automatic connect.

[perfectcolor]

Very well said Hayzee..

[LaptopsOnly]

do not expect good performance with win98, simple flash banner can take 98% of your system resources. if you like to test your connection speed go to speedtest.net
1) swap your system with windows2k , xp, ubuntu

[mrcaptainbob]

Thanks, LaptopsOnly. It is an old system with old software, but I am impressed with how well it (usually) works for what I do. Which is not much! Once I'm over this hump I'll be back in business with it. My wife's Dell with WXP on it runs almost as good!

[mrcaptainbob]

Well, HayZee, I did set it to automatic. I also found the location that says 'dialing from' was set to the place it was dialing to! SO I set it to read 'my home' as what's in the box when I first light up the PeoplePC window. So it still makes the connection, but can't display the PPC window. I can go into Mozilla, but then it claims the proxy server is not responding. Am at the outer reaches of my knowledge on this stuff. Shall I copy off all personal info such as pictures and such and then reload software? Should I reformat the disc?

[HayZee518]

you're not using a proxy server. that's only with a LAN connection and multiple machines. try re-installing the software for the modem. then open a new connection and configure your modem in win 98. I installed win xp on my laptop and it works twice as good. you may be able to load win xp restore disk off your wife's dell but do you have the windows certificate code numbers? win xp will detect your modem and attempt installing software that is included with xp. run the ppc software and you should get their login page