How to boost and increase your Internet speed

Posted on February 28, 2008 at 6:11 am

Need to increase your Internet connection speed/ There are a number of tweaks out there that will enable you to maximize your system’s performance and likewise, there are lots of things you can do to tweak your Internet connection to boost Internet speed. There are tons of them out there, but this article just lays out two of the most useful ones.

Tweak 1: Un-reserving bandwidth

By Default, XP reserves 20% of your bandwidth for it’s own use. This is a crying shame and should be undone immediately. To do this, you will not require any additional software, just follow the steps below.

Access the Group Policy Editor. This can be done by typing gpedit.msc in the Run box (Start, and then Run). You will now be looking at something like this.
Navigate to Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Network/QOS Packet Scheduler using the pane on the left side.
In the left pane, there should be a Setting with the name Limit reservable bandwidth, right-click this and select properties.
Now this might seem a bit weird, as the State will say “Not Configured” but Windows by default will reserve 20%. So the trick is to set it to reserve 0%. You can do this by clicking enabled and then setting the Bandwidth Limit % to 0. It should look like the image below.
Hit OK then close the Group Policy Editor.

That’s it! You’re done with the first tweak. Just a quick side note here, there are lots of other little things you can change easily using the policy editor. Feel free to wander around!

Tweak 2: Optimizing TCP/IP settings

This next tweak is going to require a piece of freeware called SG TCP Optimizer. This nifty little utility will optimize the manner in which your PC sends and receives data packets, which will as a result speed up your connection. Though It is most effective for broadband connections, it works for just about any type of connection.

Download SG TCP Optimizer. You don’t need to install it, just double-click and it will run. Once you run it, you should be looking at this :
That is quite an intimidating interface, but we won’t be touching most of it. Under the General Settings tab, just drag the slider to match your connection’s download speed. Then, at the bottom of the same window, select the “Optimal Settings” radio button and click “Apply Changes”.
You will now be looking at a window like the one below.
Make sure that the “Backup” tick box is ticked and then click OK.
All that’s left is to reboot your system, in order to apply the changes. You will be prompted to do so.
Once your system has rebooted, surf around for a while. If for whatever reason you feel your connection has been affected negatively, then fear not, for the changes you made can be undone. Start SG TCP Optimizer, click File and choose restore backed up settings. This will bring up a dialog box where you can navigate to where you downloaded the program. There, you will find a file with the extension .spg with a filename containing the date.

For example If you applied the changes on the 21st of February “sg_backup_2008-02-21-xxxx.spg” would be the filename, where the xxxx is any number. Once you find this file select it and press open. This should bring to a dialog box similar to the one shown above. Click OK and reboot. Your original settings are now restored.

There you have it. Your connection is now tweaked and ready to go! Any questions, post a comment!

This is a guest post written by Om J. Bathija, a tech enthusiast and blogger.

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10 Responses to “How to boost and increase your Internet speed”

coolyaa303 said on : March 11th, 2008 at 9:57 pm

I tried to do this using vista and it wouldn’t even allow me to run gpedit.msc
is there something that i have to do different?

akishore said on : March 11th, 2008 at 10:15 pm

Hi coolyaa,

Are you trying to do this on a corporate PC? Sometimes security is placed onto business computers that prevent normal users from accessing the GPEDIT applet.

Eric said on : April 3rd, 2008 at 11:17 pm

Hi mate must we put a tick on ‘Modify all network adapters’?????????Plz help me.Thanks to reply.

bob said on : April 19th, 2008 at 5:02 am

hey !!!!
bob here,,,,, i m using 64 kbps broadband internet,
it has a router… n i had tried all de above procedure… but i still get 8-10 kbps download speed…
can u help me …. 2 increase my download speed…. plz help me…. as soon as possible…. according 2 my internet info.

chezor said on : May 1st, 2008 at 1:43 am

Mine is also 64kbps and it says same 7-8 kbps download speed.. need help with speeding it up !!

the man said on : June 4th, 2008 at 12:28 pm

ok im using windows xp and when i type in gped.msc it says it cannot find it is there any way i can git to were it is taking me with out using the run prog.?

imran said on : June 22nd, 2008 at 6:04 am

hey..this is imran
well i liked tweak 1..but u c XP is opening the group policy window but its not showing d option NETWORK under administrative templates. only windows components and update appear under it. can u help

user said on : June 26th, 2008 at 8:45 pm

how do you know what your download speed is and how can u use this to put the speed up like all the way or to its full potential

dilip said on : July 14th, 2008 at 2:00 pm

hey !!!!
ray here,,,,, i m using 64 kbps broadband internet,
it has a router… n i had tried all de above procedure… but i still get 8-10 kbps download speed…
can u help me …. 2 increase my download speed…. plz help me…. as soon as possible…. according 2 my internet info.