Broadband posible on old PC?? & other PC Q's

[iguana]

Got an old fashioned steam powered PC (Toshiba Tecra 740DT laptop) currently on dial up snooze time connection, & get a bit pi$$ed that I can't view movies etc.

So can I get a broadband connection or is the PC too old & slow to cope with it?


Oh on that note just installed Symatec Norton internet security 2004 thing on it & its really slow now, is that normal?

Before instilation deleted cookies & temp internet files & it seemd to speed up a bit, but after instilation & a de-fragmenter thingy was run its slow as hell.

Im as computer technical as a Goldfish, so any replys phrase in PC numpty language please

Cheers.

[annodomini2]

depends, has it got usb?

If not has it got a network port?

The 1st depends on processor and memory, as a usb modem uses quite a bit of system resource, especially on older machines.

The second applies to cable broadband and using a router/modem combo for ADSL.

It will more than likely be quite possible with the second option although it may cost slightly more.

see www.adslguide.org.uk/ for service providers info and comparison.

I personally use metronet, payasugo 500 service, you only pay for what you use with no restrictions, minimum cost £10.99+vat to a max of 23.99+vat, my bill for a month is usually iro £14 a month, and i play games regularly.

p.s. new laptops are coming in at under £600 retail, if you scan about you may get something good for cheaper.

[annodomini2]

with regards to norton system protection, I personally try to avoid norton products as they have a habbit of wrapping themselves around your system and strangling it for a better word. Norton antivirus is not bad, but the firewall really slows the system down.

[iguana]

Its an old parallel port jobbie, it does have some card thing stuck in the side of it just under the phoneline socket with 10/100LAN cardbus PC Card written on it, so is that a network set up thingamjig?

[simpo two]

IMHO you should consider moving on - struggling to keep old hardware and OSs up to date with current stuff is a losing battle I think.

[plotloss]

You need to reset your mail doofer in your profile.

If you want to move on to something a little less steam powered, give me a shout, I'll sort it for thee no bother...

[anonymous-user]

iguana said:

Its an old parallel port jobbie, it does have some card thing stuck in the side of it just under the phoneline socket with 10/100LAN cardbus PC Card written on it, so is that a network set up thingamjig?

10/100LAN means it's an Ethernet card. (It's probably a plug in card in your PCMCIA [People Can't Memorise Computer Industry Accronyms ] card for what it's worth).

This will allow your laptop to communicate with any other computer over a wired ethernet network.

So, you're in luck.

A Broadband Router will through it's own built in ADSL modem or an external one, be able to take any Internet bound traffic from an ethernet network and send it out across the Internet.

If for some particular reason you wish to keep this old girl running (and with your illustrious history of VWs, you do seem to like a classic ), you could get one of these routers and using a simple network cable, connect your computer to the router.

Where this may fall down is if the card that says 10/100LAN on it doesn't have the network port on it, but has the port on a short piece of cable with a flat plug on the end to plug in on the computer side. If that's the case and you've lost it, you'd need a new network card. The network port looks like a larger version of the port that you plug your modem cable into.

HTH

[Pigeon]

iguana said:

Its an old parallel port jobbie, it does have some card thing stuck in the side of it just under the phoneline socket with 10/100LAN cardbus PC Card written on it, so is that a network set up thingamjig?

Sounds like a 10/100Mbit/sec Ethernet adaptor to me.

In other words... Yes. It should have a sort of square socket on it, a bit like a phone socket but bigger.