DSL speed/ping times/Tribes setup/mouse problems

I have some questions/problems on a number of different things computer-related so I'll just start listing and hopefully someone can help.

1) My DSL download speed is slow(ish).
I recently got DSL, with a plan of 6mbps down and 384kbps up. I have run a number of speed tests and only seem to get about 2.4-2.6mbps down (bad), and about 320kbps up (ok). Are there any obvious/easy things I can try to get my d/l speed better? I've gone through some of the FAQs at dslreports.com, and it seems that there are a ton of things that may be responsible. I'm just afraid of doing the tweak guide and messing up some settings, making things worse, and not being able to undo it. Should I just follow the tweak guide? I'm running XP SP2, with a Siemens Speedstream 4200 DSL modem, and a Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC

2) I think I should ping better than I do.
With this DSL connection, I play Tribes 1. I'm east coast. Yet on the popular east coast base servers, I ping around ~70ms to ~90ms both in & out of game. I see most other people ping less...some much less. Are there any settings tied to my first question that can help with my ping times? Also is there a trade-off between ping times and download speed? Or uhh...I mean, is the setup for the best ping time different than the setup for the best download speed?

3) What are the best Tribes in-game network settings?
In the Tribes 1 Network options setup screen, I currently have it on the LAN preset controls for packet size (400)/rate (15)/frame (slider all way to right). Is there a different, better manual setup than this? When google-ing, I did find a very old website with DSL tribes setup reccomendations, but when I changed it, I didn't really notice a change.

4) My LED/no ball mouse goes crazy sometimes.
I have a 15$ HP no-ball, with wire mouse. Every once in a while when I'm using the mouse, it will 'spaz out' and my cursor will start spinning around and around the screen real fast like. It will keep doing this forever unless I move the mouse about halfway across the mousepad, or if i pick it up/put back on mousepad. This is especially irritating when playing tribes and I start spinning in a circle for a few seconds. It only does this if I'm using the mouse, and might happen for 1-2 seconds once every ten minutes while playing Tribes. I don't know why it does this, or what I can do about it besides buying a new mouse.





If anyone can offer assistance with these 4 problems, I would really appreciate it. Thanks!

Run a few tracerts and paste them in your post. Start_>accessories_>Command Prompt

then type tracert (website address) This can be anything including dslreports.com, tribalwar.com etc...

That will show you a trace to dslreports and give you the average latency per hop. Alot of DSL and Cable have shitty routing and that is probably the most likely cause of your bad ping times. Not really much you can do on your end about this.

Go through the tweak test on dslreports and do the suggested changes, they can only improve things for the most part.

Your other options involve asking your dsl company (usually your telephone company) to perform a line test. They may see an issue in your line that may need fixing, either on thier end or yours. Typically line issues are usually more eratic, such as loss of sync, packet loss etc... However they can also cap your sync rate speeds based off thel line condition. Usually the 6mbs down is UP to 6mbs down, meaning you can get anywhere from 384k-6mbs based on line conditions.

If you find you have problems with the line on your end, that usually means bad or old wiring. If that is the case I suggest running a dropline from the box outside your house after installing a splitter.