Browsers & Firewalls: Optimising Shaped Connections

If you are having problems browsing, and your connection is shaped, you may need to adjust some settings on your computer to allow better TCP functionality for the 64kbps speed.

Please note, this makes setting changes to your computer, doing this is entirely at your own risk.

There is an attachment to this blog, "DRTCP021.zip" also available from DSLReports.com - DrTCP. The ideal settings for a shaped connection are to set the MTU to 576 on the PC, and adjust the TCP Receive window to be 8 times the MTU.

The simple instructions for doing this are:

1. Download and run Dr. TCP
2. Ensure the Adapter Setting is set to the Network adapter connected to your modem. This will be "RealTek", "Intel", "3Com", "nVidia", or other select variants.
3. In the TCP Receive Window, (if there is a value record it for use when reverting back) enter 4608.
4. In the MTU option, (if there is a value record it for use when reverting back) enter 576.
5. Click Save.
6. Reboot your computer.

Browsing should be a little better when shaped with the connection set to this.

You may need to reset the settings back to default after you are unshaped. To revert back to default simply enter the recorded values or if they were blank delete the values in the TCP Receive Window and MTU fields.