I replaced the phone cord, and connected the second computer directly, just as the first one had been. Both were connected through the same phone connection on the same Isobar line stabilizer.

I don't have the means to make an image of either machine. I have one hard drive per machine and no ghosting software. I don't know much about that. Perhaps I should. I back up individual folders and things, rather than whole c: drives.

Al Dornan suggested comparing the BIOS in each machine. I plan to do that when I get home, but I don't know what I'm looking for, so it will be a random comparison of every page I can find in there. Is there anything more specific I should look for? Is there something other than the BIOS?

By the way, when I swapped modems in the second computer, I deleted the driver for the modem I removed, and sometimes deleted and reinstalled the driver for the one I put in.

I have not tried putting the cheap Trendware modem in the first computer to see if it goes faster. I'm afraid that I won't be able to get that one back to where it is now.

>Very peculiar.
>You’ve tried replacing the phone cords, but are they both going to the same phone jack. Even if that’s not practical, it should be tested. A voice quality line is not always data quality – one jack could be better than the other. Try unplugging the good line from the fast PC and plugging it into the slow one. But, I suspect you have tried that and just didn’t mention it.
>
>If you have the ability to do so, you could try:
>Make an image of the slower machines as a backup.
>Make an image of the faster machine and put it on the slower machine with the faster modem.
>If it is now fast, then it is software related – driver, shared dll, some other software running and slowing it up, etc.
>
>I know that’s kind of a pain in the neck, but it would get you more info.
>
>Identical machines does not always mean identical machines. If the same “fast” image does not make it faster then I suspect that the hardware is slightly different. Either by it’s hardware version or bios. It’s rare, but that’s why our company stopped buying Gateways years ago. We could order some PCs and get them in at the same time. Same model number, looked the same on the outside, but the insides (motherboards) were different. It made support for 500+ PCs a real pain in the neck.
>
>If you never do get to an answer on this and there is another PC it is networked to at the location that will stay there, there might be a bizarre workaround. There is a way for one PC to use another’s modem to get to the Internet. I’ve never had the need to do it, but I saw the “how to” on MS’s web site one time. A modem connection is so much slower than a network connection that in theory, there should be no loss of speed for the Internet connection.
>
>
>>I had two computers made up at a local computer shop. They are identical except for the modems. The shop ran out of their usual Trendware modem, and substituted a U.S. Robotics modem bought retail for one of them. Both machines now sit on the same desk, dialing the same Earthlink number on the same phone line, to which they are connected in series. The U.S. Robotics modem reports "57Kbps" and the Trendware modem reports about 24Kbps at my home, but about 50Kbps in the shop (so they wouldn't replace it under warranty). I ordered the same model U.S. Robotics modem from Overstock.com and it also ran slow, even though the driver it installed was the same. That modem broke almost immediately anyway. While playing with modems, I tried installing the good, fast U.S. Robotics modem from my machine in the other machine, and it reported the same slow speed. I also switched around the phone cords, using a fresh cord and setting it up so the slow modem wasn't downstream from the other
>>modem. Nothing helped. The driver for the fast modem was from 2001 and hadn't been updated.
>>
>>What could possibly make these two otherwise identical computers dial up at different speeds, but without the difference being apparent in the shop? The only differences between them are the CD-ROM/R/RW drives and the software installed in each. What can I try next?