Unusual Compaq Presario problem

sheriff · December 19th, 2003, 08:01 PM

A elder friend of mine own's a Presario 5710 (AMD K6-2-450, 14gig hdd, usr modem and a lan card. It was brought to me because they couldnt get on the internet. I started doing some testing 4 days ago. Every time I got a modem installed (win98se os) it would report no dail tone and not connect. I would check the phone line, outside, after disconnecting the house from the phone line, shure enough there would be no dial tone. I would use my 2nd phone line diall the # for the line I used to connect to internet, there would be a busy signal. Used 3 diff New modems, same results. I had the phone company checking everything from my house to the switching center, less than 5000ft away. They changed everything on my line for new equipment. This morning I started by canning the operating system. fdisk'ng formating and loading WINME on it. Loaded the modem just fine, hooked to outside line and it again caused the phone switch to lock up. The phone tech says that the computer is throwing a short on the line which causes the phone companies electronic circuitry to disable the phone line for approx 30mins then re-sets itself. I had to tell the owner that I think the MoBo is the culprit, no matter if I try to use a PCI, ISA or external serial port, the results are the same everytime, locks my phone line. The same modems on a different AMD K6 box hooked to same phone lines, work fine. Any one have any Ideas to help??????

HeadBand · December 19th, 2003, 08:06 PM

i dont see what you need help with you seen to have it pretty well diagnosed if you need a new mobo for socket 7 your best bet would be ebay but check the case to make sure it has standard hookups instead of some compaq one where you need their specific mobo

sheriff · December 19th, 2003, 09:20 PM

Thanks. I have a old chaintech Socket7 that might work. You are right if I use that compaq case the problem is the pin-out's on the back of the case matching the MOBO. I will look at e-bay. Thanks

John Prophet · December 19th, 2003, 10:03 PM

freaky problem.

What about an external modem?

sheriff · December 19th, 2003, 11:56 PM

I tried a good Zoom external. All the modems worked fine on a homebuilt asus p5a sys using a k6-3 and the same os. I think maybe lightning or a power surge caused this MoBo to do this.. Linux would install and run just fine. I think the only thing I havent tried is running that zoom external while the thing was loaded with linux. Gonna go put Mandrake 9.1 on it for one final test. Thanks

HeadBand · December 20th, 2003, 12:11 AM

oh the back of the case shouldnt be a problem you can just pop out the old panel fot the new one but i am talking about the the buttons and leds on the case

Redwolf · December 20th, 2003, 10:42 AM

Compaq Presario you say? Well, a new mobo won't help much if I remember my proprietary hit-list well. Compaq has wierd screw arrangements, so you'd have to buy a compaq mobo. I'm pretty sure about that at least...

sheriff · December 20th, 2003, 12:46 PM

SheeeZammm... Put L/M 9.1 on it, using a zoom external modem, I be talking to you on it now. Linux must have some better code than windows. I tried both 98se and Winme on this thing and had all those errors. Trying to decide wheather to use the Mandrake update, or leave well enough alone. All the lady wants to do is get her email and use internet. Mandrake should allow this just fine.

Redwolf · December 20th, 2003, 05:13 PM

Wow, that's strange.

Try some internal modems now.

sheriff · December 21st, 2003, 03:29 PM

Well....Its taken a lot of time, I managed to find a isa modem that suse 8.1 would accept. Using it right now, same equipment that caused all the headache a few days ago. Different OS and different modem, (I tried all my modems with winders 98se and winme before switching). Awful lot of time just waiting for a K6-2-450 to boot, Sheeeeze I anit doing this again. LINUX was the ans I guess.