How come my dialup connection in OS X (10.5.x) is so crappy?

June 2, 2008 11:58 PM

WTF? Dialup on my MBP (OS X 10.5.x) is all wacky. Dialup provider? External USB Modem? Phoneline?

Dialup under Leopard is all funky. Upload forms (e.g. posting a picture) do not work under any browser. SSH shells are way too slow. FTP doesn't work (connects fine, but upload is broken/always timesout). Sometimes I'm still connected but I don't get any replies from servers/DNS etc.
10.4.x worked fine, still slow, but not as many problems.

I was away at college for a while (also when I got 10.5). After I've been back is when I've had the problem.

Could this be a problem with 10.5.x or could it be my ISP getting crappy? Problems with the phoneline or house-hookup?
I'm using a MBP with the External USB Modem.

I found a few apple-forum posts with some similar issues with the USB Modem, but mostly system hangs, which is not the case here.
I just have a general sh*t connection.
I've also tried tweaking the TCP settings which don't seem to help.

Are there any tweaks or fixes out there for this sort of thing?

posted by jammnrose to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

What I'm hearing is that this used to work, but it doesn't work now, and the only thing you know of that changed is the OS level.

So, it could be the OS, or the modem went bad, or your ISP or phone line got crappy.
-Can't help you with the OS.
-You could try it at someone else's house. If that works, it's probably your phone line.
-Do you have another computer with a modem? If that doesn't work either, it could be the ISP.
-Can you try plugging the modem into another computer? If it doesn't work there either, the modem could be bad.
posted by MtDewd at 6:10 AM on June 3, 2008

10.5.x isn't enough information--can you narrow that down?Have you tried upgrading to 10.5.3, which came out a few days ago? (If not, I hope you have a way to get it over a broadband connection since it's several hundred megabytes)
posted by bcwinters at 6:26 AM on June 3, 2008