The System Monitor allows you to measure the speed at which your computer receives information from the Internet. This allows you to analyze the speed increase through different configurations of Speedlane. The System Monitor is a tool by Microsoft and is normally installed at setup. If the descriptions below do not work on your system, please consult your local Windows guru.

You need to prepare the System monitor for use. In the Edit menu select Add Item... Then click on Dial-Up Adapter in the left window and on Bytes Received/Second in the right window. Then press OK. As you can see there are a lot more items you can monitor. Use them at your discretion. To view a definition of an item in the Item list, click the item, and then click Explain.

To measure download speed increases, select a website that is static, i.e. it does not include banners that change or changing information. While looking at the system monitor, load this page into the browser and note the speeds shown by the System Monitor as well as the total download time. If you do this before activating a Speedlane configuration and after, you will see a speed increase of typically 30-80%. Note that you may need to empty the browser cache in between tests and that a reboot is necessary every time you change options in Speedlane. Speed is also affected by the amount of users on that server and on the network. Therefore it is best to do this test at hours when few users are active.

Troubleshooting tips
If Speedlane's System Monitor button does not react, you need to install the System Monitor program. This only takes 2 minutes. Please click Start, select Settings and Control Panel, then Add/Remove Programs. Now click the Windows Setup tab and double click on System tools. Mark the System monitor checkbox and click OK twice. You may be requested to put in your Windows setup CD.

If there is no Dial-Up Adapter present on the left side, you are using an outdated version of System Monitor. Visit the Microsoft website to download an update. You may also want to consult this Microsoft article in addition.

Hardware Upgrade Advisor

The Hardware Upgrade Advisor analyzes your current system and gives you recommendations on how to increase the functionality of your computer.
You need an active Internet connection before you click on this button. It will link you to an interactive webpage that will analyze your computer configuration.