Inspiron 5150 - System sluggish after successful dial-up connection

Question

I normally use a cable modem.  Recently, I went out of town and had to use a dial-up (factory-installed Broadcom modem). I discovered that whenever I've successfully made a dial-up connection, my whole system becomes sluggish.  By that I mean that everything seems to pause off and on. For instance, I would move my mouse and the cursor stays put on the screen. Then it would then jump across the screen.  I would double-click on IE to open it up.  Again, nothing happens immediately. But after about a second, it opens. It even happens when I'm typing.  A few times, the whole machine just froze as I was typing a long sentence. I couldn't even bring up the Task Manager. I had to physically power the machine off with the power button.  I've tried dialing in to other numbers from my ISP list, but I still see the issue. When I'm not connected via the dial-up modem, everything functions correctly. I tried searching for similar problems in this forum before I posted. I hope somebody can help!  Thanks.

vster · Answer

I forgot to mention that I'm using XP Professional.

evt · Answer

vster, For what it's worth, I have the same problem and I'm furious(I've calmed down a bit - before I was apoplectic) and I don't have any solutions yet.   -evt

The_Wizard · Answer

Same problem here!  I am running XP Home.  I think the modem worked fine initially but now the computer is VERY sluggish most of the time when the modem is connected.  I have upgraded drivers, bios, etc from Dell's upgrade site and I'm thinking that may have messed something up.  I'm using Earthlink, are you having the problem with a different internet service provider?

vster · Answer

I have not updated the driver for the modem, so it's what came out of the factory. I use a different ISP, plus I've had to dial into my work's network. I get the same problem in both cases.

I've searched this forum and Dell's online tech support pages, and I haven't been able to find any reference to this. Are the three people in this thread the only three to have this problem? Sounds highly unlikely.

Message Edited by vster on 12-25-2003 01:07 PM

bphan6 · Answer

Hi,
If you Plugg in your AC power adapter, you should be able to fix the sluggish. I believe that your system is having the Intel Moble Pentium in it. When you plug in the AC power, it will run at the full speed, and when you use the battery, it will throttles down to 1/2 speed to conserve the battery and also has a modem conflict (???). I had the same problem and accidently find out the work-around.

I wonder if Dell really have the fix for it.

Bphan6

fplainfi03 · Answer

Hi Guys,

I have the 5150 with all the stock drivers and modem. I use the high speed access at work and earthlink dialup at home. Im running win xp profesional, and have no problems even when i'm running at battery power, and i use speedswitch xp. I'd be interested in hearing what is causing your problems.

redwrangler97 · Answer

Thanks for posting your message. As part of the research to figure out my problem, I stumbled across this board and saw several with similar problems with the 5150 BCM modem. I never suspected the power supply...

That fixed the problem. I was unable to establish any dial up network connection from home, but had no problems from the office. I just recently changed long distance providers, and thought that was the problem some how. (Actually changed it again... ) In reading your message I realized I always plug in the laptop at the office and don't from home.

Thanks again.

-redwrangler97

The_Wizard · Answer

I had the problem regardless of being plugged in or not.  I even tried a program which forced the computer to run at 100% all the time.  I think my problem was a VPN (virtual private network) from Cisco Systems.  I needed to run this program for wireless internet at the U of I and had to uninstall and upgrade the program and after doing this the modem worked fine.  So if anyone is running a VPN check out an upgrade.

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

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