Windows 98 Internet Connection Speed Problem

[GimieGimieGimie]

Righty - o folks, a very close friend of mine who i talk to over the Internet but unfortunantly is in another part of the country to me so i can't expect her computer myself, has a problem with her connection speed.

Operating system - Windows 98 SE

Basically, for some odd reason, when ever she connects now, the connection speeds are awful, well even for a 56k 0.5k speeds is unacceptable

Now i've had this problem once or twice before in the past with my Windows 98, upgrading Internet Explorer or installing another browser doesn't fix the problem, i think it's to do with the Windows system files it's self.

I didn't really care to find a long time solution myself, and just reinstalled Windows, and everything worked again.

But unfortunatly, that can't happen in this case, for some reason my friend can't start a installation of Windows or even format because the computer warns her that the drive is "compressed"

Looked in C:\ properties, nothing to show that the drive is compressed, looked at DriveSpace 3, no compression found.

What's going on!?

Is the FAT table corrupted or something?

Wrong DOS version?

I think that the solution to the Internet connection problem is to replace certain system files that actually allow the process of connecting to happen, problem is, i don't know which files they are

That's why a reinstall of Windows was always the best solution.

Isn't Wsock32.dll one of files?

But there's 2 problems here, one bigger then the other, i would like to see both fixed.

I feel like my brain is about to explode thinking about this with the lack of information/communication and all.

I'm stuck, if anyone can help me and my friend, please feel free to releave some stress

Many thanks in advance people, i'm real tired now and nearly falling alseep on the keyboard, so i'm heading off to bed, hopefully i'll have something to go on in the morning , goodnight