What speed shows when you connect?
I remember back when I used dial-up, it had a notification at the bottom when you connected 'connected at xkbps'.
I always got 28kbps, and it was due to the phone line being old. We had a double adapter connected as well, without that I got to 32kbps.
My guess would be that it's potentially your phone line.
Do you have another PC/dialup modem to check if it's your PC or the line?

the win98 connects at random speeds, sometimes 33.6kbps, sometimes 41.7kbps etc but is always faster and doesn't have the weird idling that the winxp computer has

At the end of the day, yes, I reckon he is speaking out of his ass

A bad modem can still do screwy things like that, especially if the phone line isn't that crash hot. Which it sounds like it might not be the best of the win98 box connects at random speeds.

Give the reformat a go, but if you have the same dramas afterwards I'd put money on the modem. They are usually only about $20 - $30 to replace depending on where you get them from, so it shouldn't cost you a fortune to replace

well I reformatted today, I don't think there's any difference, at first it seemed good but now i'm seeing lots of gaps of idling, some even larger than before, but it's tons inconsistent now :/

so what does that leave? either my friend was right (I still don't really believe this) there's some mega virus in the bios or something, or the modem is dodgy, that last one would make sense as I got this computer way back in 2003 I think but the other modem is even older (like a decade) yet it was alright except the random connection speeds

but the weird thing is that like right now i'm downloading getright and it shows 3.7kb/s download rather than the usual 2.2 :/ *sigh* such a pain

I've seen XP work great with dialup (as much as that sounds like an oxymoron), so said theory is well and truly shot.

If it was a BIOS virus, plenty of other random things would be happening, bit probably not that.

Given the age of the modem (a relative relic when it comes to modem lifetimes) I still reckon that's the most likely candidate. From my experience I would still say modem

Wow, I'm good at reading the thread it seems

The speed the com port is set to can effect the speed substatially if its using a rs232 modem.

control panel, phone/modem, modem, click on it, and properties, then modem tab, and check the maximum port speed. If its 115200 try taking it down to 57600.

win98 had pretty basic modem init strings. XP liked to get all fancy depending on the driver. maybe try the generic modem driver? or if you want to get technical at&f is my favorite init string (factory defaults and overrides any settings xp tries to send to the modem).

how would you know? mine is like Creatix V.9x DSP Data Fax Modem

Simple way to find out is to drop the speed as i suggested.

The modem would have to do a lot of buffering when sending data to it at full speed. If there is a handshake issue this will cause massive slowdowns. A incorrect wired cable, or dud serial port can also cause this. setting the modem and PC to xon/xoff will disable the hardware handshaking and use software handshaking that will eliminate any cable issues.

Also you can set the rs232 speed to something slow and silly like 2400. This will again cause handshaking issues, but in the other direction.

57600 is very close to the maximum modem speed obtainable and will limit handshake issues, you should see an improvement.

115200 can cause signal issues, and possible the rs232 chips might be struggling at this speed. Theres no real speed benefit from running the rs232 this hard, and may make the connection slower.

If your sure the modem works ok on the 98 box then its worth checking out the modem -> pc link in detail.

I tried putting it down to 57600 and besides an odd dialogue box coming up before dialing nothing has changed, still slow and still having lots of idling :/

Just to clarify a few things. .. are you using the same modem on the XP box as the 98 machine? .. Is either modem a 'built in' modem? ..

Note: I ask this as different modems can handle differently. .. and Built In modems can suffer from performance issues. ..

no and no

Cool, have you tried the Win98 modem on the XP machine or vice versa? I would put it down to the hardware (ie. modem, port, etc) until I had cancelled them out. .. XP in my experience is unlikely to effect your dial up speed, that much. ..

yea, had that idea as I was reading your previous post, been a bit lazy to try that plus there's the looking for drivers :/ may try it tomorrow

Generally speaking (as a point of reference), hardware modems are much more expensive, however they handle bad line conditions much better. Software modems are cheaper and work well on good phone lines, but as soon as you have issues with the line the speed dives badly.

Food for thought