I've been using a Vodafone Data Card for the past 5 months. I'm out in the sticks (near Mooinooi) where we have only GPRS available. So, speed is about the same as a dial-up connection using a Telkom landline. Otherwise the service is reasonable, and half the expense of using a Telkom dial-up. A problem is that every so often during the course of the day through-put stops completely and the only way to get it started again is to reboot the PC. I’ve noticed that when that happens, the indicator which shows what service (GPRS/3G/Edge) one is connected to shows blank, although signal is 3 bars and it does say Vodacom. Is this a network issue, or could it be some setting on my PC that needs changing? What I don’t understand is why the connection should work immediately after a reboot, then go down again after a while. Any help/info please. If this issue has been dealt with before, please provde a link to that thread.
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No throughput on GPRS
- Thread starter JohannvS
- Start date
Skeptik
Banned
If you're getting near dial-up speed for GPRS then you are winning. Vodacom GPRS is notoriously slow and unreliable and has been for a considerable time despite complaints (yeah they don't listen). Those stoppages are also more common than you realise. There is a marked difference between MTN and Vodacom regarding this. I can't leave Vodacom alone for more than say 15 minutes without having to reconnect. With MTN it is more than 30 minutes. I would guess they do this to keep connections open and to get you to use more credit. (I can't think of another reason)
Why do you have to reboot? Maybe if you just restarted your modem/phone and then tried to reconnect...
It seldom helps to only shut down the modem, restart and reconnect again. Most often that doesn't get things going again and I have found that rebooting the PC is the only way to get back online.
I'll try to implement a policy of disconnecting whenever nobdy will be using the connection for a while, hoping that having to reconnect whenever one wants to go online will relieve some of the frustration.
Thanx
Skeptik
Banned
I recently swapped PCs and the difference is considerable when it comes to the 'shutdown/restart to get it going' business. Possibly the BIOS has been improved to handle the ports. Is your PC old?
About 2 & 1/2 years old: BIOS version / date = F3aMS, 16/01/2004, and SMBios ver = 2.3 If that helps.
I don't understand what you mean there, if possible take a snapshot of the VMC window [using HoverSnap] and upload it & post a link to the snapshot so we can see what goes blank...
Not really, best is to check if there are any BIOS updates on the mainboard manufacturer's website...