Greetings again.
I was away from my PC for a couple of weeks, and came back to find my Pipex account active and ready for use! Had to pick up the modem at the sorting office (Alcatel Speedtouch).... like a big, purple mouse!
What a difference to dialup - I'm still getting used to it.
Only one slight problem (!) - despite the fact that I don't have the dreaded VIA chipset on-board, I'm experiencing what I think *may* be power-related quirks.
After surfing the net for half-an-hour or so, the PC starts to 'freeze' a bit. That is, the connection seems to temporarily pause, accompanied by the mouse-pointer freezing in its tracks. After a few seconds, normality returns. As time goes on, these symptoms become more pronounced.
The 'WinMX' filesharing program suffers the worst......... after half-an-hour, these problems get quite bad, with LONG periods of 'freezing'. Even the system-clock seems to be affected, as it tends to stop during these freezes, eventually lagging many minutes behind real-time. When I quit WinMX, time goes back to normal.
'Mustapha Phagg' mentioned the following :-
"I use a ... usb modem with a powered 4 port hub (get them from your local computer fair for about £15.00) this takes the load of of your machines USB port."
Am I right in thinking that this hub is a device which (a) plugs into the mains, and (b) the modem plugs into THAT, as opposed to the PC's USB port?
And, if so, would that alleviate my problem, if it is indeed the cause of my woes?!
Or, can anyone comment on what the problem *could* be? Thanks for any help!