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Hi Steve, There's nothing more that makes a puter work at maximum than CAD rendering, streaming stock charts, gaming, etc; as they all have huge data requirements. I can't get DSL or cable and satellite will cost too much ($200mth) as I require 26m/hr of download to run my charts. So it's POTS(plain ol' telephone system) at 28.8bps. I'm into the streaming stock charts at 28.8bps maximum and the most noticable difference in the past 3yrs has been changing too XP with a 1.8ghz Intel CPU, software modem. My Toshibia XP lap top just smoked my last Intel main frame and CTX laptop to the point I didn't even repair either one. Yep my main frame and laptop took a dump with-in a couple days of each other. The Toshibia XP lasted about 18mths before the HDD took a dump, then at 28mths the internal sofeware modem went, then went the DVD, and then the cooling fan. At $900 cost, I expected them to last longer. That was about $350yr cost. I replaced the SW modem with a Best Data 56U USB external software modem. Wow what a improvement over the Toshibia modem while were still talking 28.8bps max. It was the V.94 of Best Data that made the difference. Toshibia doesn't have a serial port, only a USB port. If your ISP doesn't have V.94 then your not gonna see a huge improvement. I then built a Intel main frame with a Intel Duo CPU with XP win98 upgrade. Wow another huge speed boost on my 28.8bps line. I stayed with the external Best Data software modem. It was the dual CPU function that made the difference this time as the modem works on all most a dedicated CPU. Downside of the Intel Duo CPU is they require alot of cooling fan that has to be piped to the outside of the case. I also didn't like the way the fan attached to the CPU as it almost made you think you'll break the motherboard installing it. The Toshibia XP version glitched about evey 7mths. The XP win98 upgrade version hasn't glitched in a year. My son's XP stand alone version hasn't glitched in 3yrs but took longer to set-up(tweaking) Right before my main frame build, I built my son a main frame XP using a USR modem. I tried both the software and hardware versions and finialy gave up trying to get them to work correctly and just bought another Best Data modem. If I remember correct USR was sold about that time. The next best buy was a Viewsonic 19" LCD (VP920b), about $220 delivered. I'll never own another CRT monitor as the LCD is so easy on the eyes. So why did I talk about this other stuff, because it all was a huge improvement over Win98 that had to be to make the modem work correct. If your just doing YTmag and e-mail, etc, then it won't be as noticable if you already have XP. T_Bone
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