Hey, this OT forum is great. Puter Question

[Steve Clardy]

Now we can harass ol Ken over here and He can't edit it out. LOL
BTW, computer question. After the electrial storms wiping out my surge protector, modem, telephone, and fax seperator, I installed a new modem. Now I have to pick up the phone to get connected, or it won't connect. I do not have the phone hooked to puter, and have checked the line in on the modem and it is correct. ????????? Ideas???
Steve

Steve: "Magic happens!!"
And just when I thought I had one over on KEN, HE slips right on in. Sneaky, sneaky you are Ken. LOL Steve

[John Miliunas]

Steve, some ( a lot) of modems have an option to check: "Wait for dial tone before dialing." Make sure that box is checked. If not, then put a comma or two in front of the number you're dialing. That's a "pause", which will force the modem to "slow down" before dialing and hopefully pick up a dial tone. Let us know if this is of any use to you. Good luck!

[Steve Clardy]

Did the dial tone thing. Will try the comma approach. Steve

[Don Henthorn Smithville, TX]

Originally posted by Steve Clardy
Did the dial tone thing. Will try the comma approach. Steve

Could you have reversed the phone and line in connections? Just a wild, and I mean wild, guess.

[Steve Clardy]

Hooked up correctly. Think I just got a bum modem. Everything loads terribly slow also. Steve

[John Miliunas]

That would indeed be a bummer. What flavor (brand) of modem is it and, is it a Win Modem or a full card modem? In either event, have you gone out to the modem's OEM web site and checked for latest drivers? Reason being, often times, when a modem is shipped, all they give you are the original drivers, which may not always work really well. Sometimes, updated drivers can make a whole world of difference. Just a suggestion...

[Steve Clardy]

It's a Lucent brand, carried by radio shack. Was in a hurry to get it going as I had stuff listed on Ebay. I usually go to a computer repair shop to get a good one, but radio shack was closer. Usually a mistake to buy a cheaper brand, but had no choice.
Never thought about driver, will go to driver.com and search around. Thanks for the tip. WIll try that. Steve

[Jim Becker]

Originally posted by Steve Clardy
It's a Lucent brand, carried by radio shack.

Just to clarify, Lucent made the modem chip set, but the modem was invariably manufacted by some other company "out there" in the world. There are only a few chip-set manufacturers. Folks who build modems have to buy from that limited group.

There are a number of things that can affect modem performance...sometimes a special code or two is necessary in the "modem setup string" to work well with a particular ISP's modem banks.

But your modem could also be damaged if you've had a lot of storm activity in your area...