PCI modems don't work?

[Rivergoat]

I saw this with an A7V600, and the same with my new A7N8x-E deluxe...

Tried a Creative modem blaster I had at work (new). I have only dial
up at home, so I need a modem (rural area, no DSL...can't afford
satellite DSL equipment).

While the Creative worked in older machines, it never worked in the
A7V600, and only was able to dial out once on the A7N8X-E.

The modem would respond to queries just fine, no apparent IRQ or COM
conflicts (it defaulted to COM3, though I tried other COM ports, too).
Modem would simply never grab a dial tone upon dial out (except one
time only, and there really were no changes I made that should have
made that difference).

Having found a U.S. Robotics 56K external at work, I tried it. Works
perfectly every tiime. I even flashed its ROM with V.92 upgrades and
newest drivers from USR. as I say, works like a charm. Will continue
to use it, but very curious why the PCIs won't work. Have also talked
to someone at work who can't get a PCI modem to work either, although
besides running WinXP I don't know his configuration. I'm running
Win2K Pro, BTW.

TIA

 

[Paul]

I saw this with an A7V600, and the same with my new A7N8x-E deluxe...

Tried a Creative modem blaster I had at work (new). I have only dial
up at home, so I need a modem (rural area, no DSL...can't afford
satellite DSL equipment).

While the Creative worked in older machines, it never worked in the
A7V600, and only was able to dial out once on the A7N8X-E.

The modem would respond to queries just fine, no apparent IRQ or COM
conflicts (it defaulted to COM3, though I tried other COM ports, too).
Modem would simply never grab a dial tone upon dial out (except one
time only, and there really were no changes I made that should have
made that difference).

Having found a U.S. Robotics 56K external at work, I tried it. Works
perfectly every tiime. I even flashed its ROM with V.92 upgrades and
newest drivers from USR. as I say, works like a charm. Will continue
to use it, but very curious why the PCIs won't work. Have also talked
to someone at work who can't get a PCI modem to work either, although
besides running WinXP I don't know his configuration. I'm running
Win2K Pro, BTW.

TIA

Someone posted a question about the Creative product before. Here is
a sample from Google:

http://groups.google.com/[email protected]

The chips used in products like this are used in a number of different
products. So, it is hard to pin the blame on Creative. Since it is a
soft modem, it is dependent on the drivers for all of its useful
operations. The hardware just converts the analog phone line audio
signal, into a digitized quantity. Your processor has to do some
digital signal processing, to recover the data from that analog stream.

Any vendor who sells these, would have to pay Pctel or a similar
driver company, for updates to the drivers. It is all too easy to
sell the product and not keep the drivers current with today's
common OSes.

I own a USR 56K and bought one for someone at Christmas, and the
beauty of an external modem, is they produce a serial stream. That
means much less load on the processor (no DSP necessary). I actually
compared the USR against a soft modem, and was surprised to find
that the soft modem gave about 1% more thruput. But the thing is,
the USR will be less dependent on the health of your system software,
than the soft modem will be. I'd stick with the USR and take
the 1% thruput hit.

As the Google post above suggests, it is possible other vendor's
drivers will work with the product. Maybe on the systems on which
the Modem Blaster worked, the OS was different ?

HTH,
Paul

 

[notritenoteri]

PCI modems work fine just need to install carefully andmake sure drivers are
up to date for the OS you're using if Its XP earlier Windows drivers may or
may not work. You ahave to clean out all reference to the driver and card
then install the card and let the wizard find it when it asks for drivers
you give it the location of the correct drivers and you should be away to
the races.

 

[Tim]

The guiding rule for modems is: no soft modems, no USB modems.

If you want ease of setup, use externals since they will at least work
without a driver.

I have found some of the cheap internals using rockwell chipset to be
excellent at a fraction of the cost of the USR's. Whats more they tend to
support good TAPI functionality including DTMF recognition, speech etc.

- Tim

 

[Rivergoat]

Been there...done that...doesn't work.

Am using external USR modem and am off to the races just fine.

 

[notritenoteri]

could be a socket/plug/cable problem. Most PCI modems are rj45 sockets where
as ex-modems are com type connectors. THe PCI modems do work I'm using one
for this right now but if the Office can supply a v92 then go for it.

 

[Rivergoat]

Exactly.

On one machine at work a PCI has worked fine; it's a "cheapie" I don't
know the brand, but it's always worked.

The USR external? Groovy, I'll move on to my one other glitch on the
new machine (shut down/reboot issue - black screen, no full restart or
shut down. I have tech pages from Microsoft on that. Need to determine
if there's a weird driver in there. I made sure to pull out all unused
PCI modem stuff,though. BTW...I did get proper shut down/reboot when
only the OS and Office were installed. Two rounds of installing OS, no
pattern as to when the glitch appeared - can't pin it on one specific
program)