Big Modem Troubles! [Thanks to power surge!]

[om3ga]

Hey, this is from my friend, m3rlin (doesnt use this forum yet) and is having major problems with his modem. I cant figure it out, hopefully you here will have more idea what the problem could be than either of us! lol

Quote:

'lo everybody..

We had a huge power surge on christmas eve, and since then my modem hasn't been able to connect through win2k.

I hopped onto redhat 7.3 without changing anything, and it works perfectly, but through 2K, it doesn't. It just gives me a 680 error - no dial tone, but I have checked the connections, and their all working fine. (through linux anyway).

The modem is detected through linux as a "Softk56", same thing through windows, or it was before the surge. I had a winmodem installed when the surge happened, and I got the 680 error with that also, so I figured that something must have happened and it fried the modem. It didn't, because when I installed a modem that was in the box at the time (the cardboard box that it came in, not the "box"), it gave that error.. Just to recap what i've said so far:

Had a winmodem in the computer
Got struck by lightning - big surge
Computer rebooted, error 680 in win2k.
Got into linux, tried it, worked fine
Changed winmodem to hardware internal modem, same error.

I've tried ringing up Primus (my isp) and they told me to use the initilization string "X3" and uncheck the "wait for dialtone" option, then it gave me a 777 error, same thing that I get when i'm not connected to anything at all (when the phone line is physically NOT plugged into the modem). I've formatted and completely reinstalled win2k 5 times, and it hasn't worked for any of them. I've run out of ideas. The only thing I think it could possibly be is the winmodem (which has 'onboard' crap), has somehow decided that it is still on the motherboard, even though the physical card is not. Therefore, it's basically fighting with the hardware internal modem that's installed for the COM port, and it's screwing up the one that's installed. It would explain why it works in linux because the winmodem is not detected there.

If that's the case, then i've got no real options other than to get a new motherboard (which i was going to do anyway - see sig), cpu, ram etc and start fresh...

I've tried with different drivers and have stuck with the official generic ones from conexant - they were the only ones that seemed to work at all...

Any ideas?

Thanks,

wOOt! any ideas anyone?

Thanks

[jkrohn]

Is he using the same PCI slot over and over again? Perhaps changing which slot it is in. That slot could be damaged.

Jkrohn

[om3ga]

m3rlin says he's tried changing PCI slots, remember that the modem works perfectly in Linux, but gives errors in Windows 2k

Thx,
om3ga

[jkrohn]

Yeah doesn't make too much sense.

I'd say a driver went bad in windows, but if he has reinstalled, then thats not the case.

The reinstall of windows really takes care of everything. DUN, drivers, etc..

Dunno what to tell you.

Jkrohn

[UncaDanno]

I know this'll sound goofy, but do you have Linux set up to listen for a dial tone before dialing? That's the default in Windows.

Reason I ask is that, in a former life, I had to take a dumb terminal home with a 9600 modem. The thing wouldn't connect if I had it set to listen for a dial tone. So I set it to not care, pause for a second (comma in the number) and have at it. Connected OK that way...

[TOAD6147]

Sounds like it may be a Plug N' Play problem. Possibly the power surge may have caused the CMOS to revert back to setup defaults and it changed the setting to have the BIOS manage the IRQ's to Windows which is not a good choice. Check that out and get back to us.