Frequently Asked Questions

These technical configuration suggestions are to be used at your own risk.   Hawk Internet Services can not be held liable for any damage caused to your computer as a result of following these tips, or using the Internet.

"I can't connect anywhere close to my modem's maximum speed!"
Normal connect rates are between 14400 kbps and 53300 kbps, depending on your phone line conditions. The higher connect rates are difficult to achieve on analog phone lines. Keep in mind that the connect rate reported at login is just a snapshot of that moment and your actual speed will fluctuate during the time you are connected. When you call someone, do you notice any noise, cross-over, or static on the line? If so, you may have bad phone lines and that interference you hear can cause you problems when you try to connect to the Internet. You can try disconnecting any other devices such as telephones, answering machines, fax machines, surge suppressers, caller-id boxes, a security system connected to the phone line, anything that is connected to the phone line may be causing interference with your connection. 

If you are using a line splitter or doubler on your computer phone jack, try the connection without it. You should have your phone line plugged directly into the phone jack. If this improves your connection, start plugging things back in one-by-one until you find the culprit causing your problem. You may want to run a dedicated line from you computer phone jack straight to the phone box on your house, bypassing other house phone jacks and circuits that may be causing line noise or other interference. If you are using a 56K modem, the distance between you and the phone company's central office and the number of analog to digital conversions along the route will also affect your ability to connect faster. 

Are you dialing a 56K line? If you are in the 817 area code and you are using a 56K modem, you should be dialing 817-317-0053. If you are in the 214 or 972 area code and you are using a 56K modem, you should be dialing 214-720-1878. Also be aware that there are three types of 56K modems, which are X2, k56flex, and v.90. We support the v.90. If you are using one of the other two technologies, the modem will work, but you will not connect anywhere near 53300 kbps. In most cases, upgrading your X2 or k56flex modem to the v.90 standard is free! Find the website for the manufacturer of your modem and download the latest drivers and upgrade for the v.90 standard. You can also utilize the resources at http://www.56k.com. It is good practice, no matter what kind of modem you are using, to keep the drivers updated. Find your modem manufacturer on the web and save the site as a bookmark or in your favorites. If you can not find a solution the problem, it is more than likely impaired phone lines and there may be little you can do about it accept contact your local phone company. This is not to say that you personally have bad phone lines. There may be a problem with the phone lines in the neighborhood or with one of the switches you have to go through to make the call. In this case, your only course of action is to report the problem to the phone company.

"My connection to the Internet is disconnected !"
If you have an internal modem, meaning your modem is inside the computer, completely shut down the computer and turn the power off, wait a few seconds, turn the computer back on, and try the connection again. If you have an external modem, turn the modem off, wait a few seconds, turn it back on, and try the connection again. This will re-initialize the modem and remove any data that the modem may have buffered. If you have call waiting, disable it. 

To disable call waiting, type *70 before the number to be dialed. If call waiting is already disabled, unplug any devices that may be plugged into the back of the modem. You can also try unplugging other devices in the house that are connected to the phone line. Lower you port speed on your modem. If you are using Windows 95 or 98 you will find this in the Control Panel in Modems. Select the modem you are using and click the Properties button. Lower the maximum speed and try the connection again. If you still can't stay connected, you may need to upgrade your firmware and drive or change your init strings for the modem. If nothing seems to work, impaired phone lines may be the problem. Call the phone company and see if they are experiencing any problems.

"My computer hangs for a long time on 'verifying username and password'!"
If you are using Windows 95 or 98, double click on the my computer icon, then double click on the dial up networking folder, right click on the connection you use, choose properties. Click on Server Types and be sure that "Log on to network" is not checked. The only options that should be checked are "Enable Software Compression" and "TCP/IP".

"The Internet seems to be running slow!"
There are several factors that may influence the speed of your navigation on the Internet. You may have a slow connection. There may be an increase in network traffic on the site you are trying to browse. The site you are downloading or viewing may have several large graphics that take time to download or the page may be downloading and processing scripts or sound files. You may be running low on memory or virtual memory. The route you must take to get to a particular site may be congested or one of the "hops" along the way may be experiencing problems. 

What can you do to improve the speed? In many cases, there may not be much you can do. If you think your modem is connecting at a slow speed, see the section on slow connections at the top of the page. Try clearing out your cache memory. 

If you are using Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher, click on View, Internet Options, click Delete Files under the section labeled Temporary Internet Files, then click Clear History under the section labeled History, and then click OK at the bottom. If you are using an older version of Internet Explorer, click on View, Options, Advanced, then click View Files under the section titled Temporary Internet Files, select all the files in the folder and press the Delete key on your keyboard, then click on the tab labeled Navigation and click Clear History under the section labeled History, and then click the OK button at the bottom. 

If you are using Netscape Navigator 3.02 or earlier, click Options, Network Preferences, then click the button labeled Clear Memory Cache Now, and then click the OK button at the bottom. If you are using Netscape Communicator, click on Edit, Preferences, click on Navigator found on the left side, then click the Clear History button on the right side, then look on the left for Advanced, if you see the word Cache underneath, click it, if you do not see Cache, double click Advanced, then click Cache, and then click Clear Memory Cache and click the OK button. 

Now that your cache memory is freed, shutdown the computer, turn off the power, wait a few seconds, turn the power back on and try again. This will free up wasted memory and resources that your computer can use to process those web pages quicker. It is also a good idea to close all other programs while browsing the Internet. The more programs you open, the less available memory your computer has to work with.

"How do I use my other email accounts?"
If you are using Internet Mail, Microsoft Outlook, Exchange, Windows Messaging, or Netscape Navigator 3.x or earlier, you can only use one email account at a time. To use a different email account using one of these programs, you will have to change the mail settings each time, or setup profiles on your computer for each user. 

When you setup profiles on your computer, each user must log on to the computer differently. View your computer documentation for more information on creating profiles. The easier alternative is to obtain a program that handles more than one mail account at one time. There is a draw back to this approach. Your mail can be easily viewed by other users on the machine unless you deleted it after reading. 

For maximum ease, you can download either Outlook Express with Internet Explorer from www.microsoft.com, or Netscape Communicator from www.netscape.com. For maximum privacy and security, create profiles on your computer and require each user to log on the computer.

"I keep getting the message 'Internet Explorer could not open the site...'!"
If you are getting this message on just one or two sites, those particular sites may be down, and unless it is a site we host or it is our site, there is nothing we can do. If you get this message every time you try to go to an Internet site, you may not be connected. When you opened Internet Explorer, did you see a screen that asked for your username and password? If you did not see this dialog box, you are not connected, and if you are not connected, Internet Explorer will not be able to find the site. 

Internet Explorer normally dials in for you, but it does not always do as it is supposed to. This is a known problem. To alleviate the problem, you can reinstall Internet Explorer, or download a newer version of Internet Explorer, or go through the connection wizard, or create a shortcut to the dialer on your desktop. You can download a newer version from www.microsoft.com.

To go through the connection wizard, click on the Start button, go to Accessories, then to Internet Tools, and then click on Get on the Internet. Follow the prompts and the wizard will create a new dialer linked to Internet Explorer. Going through the Connection Wizard does not always work, but it is easy to do and worth a try. To create a shortcut to your dialer, click on your Start button, go to Accessories, then to Dial-up Networking. 

If the Dial-up Networking window is maximized, you will want to click the Restore button, which is the middle button in the upper right corner of the window. You should be able to see your desktop behind the Dial-up Networking window. The desktop is the main startup screen. Grab the dialer in the Dial-up Networking window that you use to access Hawk Internet Services and drag it to the desktop. You may be asked if you would like create a shortcut, click yes. In order to connect and browse the Internet, you will have to open the shortcut to your dialer, enter your username and password if they are not already entered, and click connect. The dialer will go through the connection process. 

Once you are connected, open Internet Explorer by double clicking the icon labeled The Internet. If you are dialed in and you can not view any website, you may need to check your DNS settings. To check your DNS settings, open Dial-up Networking, click once on the dialer you use to connect to Hawk Internet, then click File and Properties, click Server Types, and then click the button labeled TCP/IP Settings. 

You should have "Server assigned IP address" selected and "Specify name server addresses selected". In the box provided for the Primary DNS, you should see 207.55.158.10, and in the box provided for the Secondary DNS, you should see 206.50.125.13 or 206.50.125.1. Click the OK button at the bottom until you reach the Dial-up Networking window. 

Close the Dial-up Networking window. If you made any changes to the dialer, try the connection again. If you are still having a problem call us at metro 817-654-4295.

"I keep downloading the same mail messages over and over!"
You may have a message in your mail box that is corrupted or too large to download. The protocols used in sending and receiving mail were originally meant for text messages only and are not reliable for attachments and images. 

If you are receiving the same five messages every time you check your mail, chances are that you have more than five messages and the sixth message is keeping you from retrieving all your mail, and unless you receive all your mail, your messages stay on the server. Messages are not removed from the server until all the messages in the mail box are downloaded. 

To remedy this problem call us at metro 817-654-4295. We will need to know your email address and which message is causing the jam. Is it the second, third, fourth, etc...? We will remove the message causing the backup so that you can retrieve the remaining messages from your mail box. If you receive the same messages over and over plus new messages, you may have an option selected in your mail settings that will keep a copy of your messages on the mail server. If you unselected this option, the problem should be eliminated.

"I can't connect!"
If you are using Windows 95 or Windows 98 refer to Troubleshooting Connectivity in Windows 95/98. If you are using Windows 3.x, refer to Troubleshooting Connectivity in Windows 3.x. If you are using a Macintosh, refer to Troubleshooting Connectivity using Macintosh.