Steam and 56K Modems (dial-up) "Updating" help.

OK. I know most people here use broadband cable, DSL or T1 ETC, but there are those of us who are stuck in the "country" with dial-up. Most of the time it works just fine, if not just slow. I can download 20meg files and picture Emails over time, so my connection is pretty solid (40K), at least.

Except for Steam account updates, where it doesn't seem to work at all. I reloaded Half-Life 2, and I need to get the account "updated". It updates to 30% or so and then repeatedly pops back out and updates to 28% and then drops off all together. Recycle, rinse, repeat. I have seen this issue mentioned, but no solutions. I doubt that STEAM will answer any Emails, and the site is pretty poor on support. It doesn't seem like it should be so hard to "update" my CD seriel number and download whatever is needed for offline gaming.

What work around have you found for the problem with dial-up? I can't believe STEAM would require a broadband just to update an account and play the game "offline". I reloaded Half-Life (original recipie) and forgot how good this game is. But I'd like to run through Half-Life 2.

rower30

I've tried as recently as yesterday and it hangs at 33% and yes, it is Half-Life II. But, the part that hangs is the steam account update, not the actual game patch updates.