dialup modem disconnect problems -- update

[chunkstyle]

hey

i'm having as TON of trouble with my dialup internet connection, and
desperately could use some help, please. i've posted about this before
recently, and have tried a few fixes based on the replies i got, but nothing
has helped.

the problem is that i'm getting disconnected frequently, and have no idea
why. it generally happens every 5-12 minutes. my isp is wal-mart connect
(yeah, i know -- goofy!). this started happening about 3 weeks ago, and is
now a guaranteed occurrence every time i go online. i haven't changed
anything about the system, phone jack or phone cord before the problem
started. we did move the computer to a different spot in the same room,
but didn't start having this problem until a couple weeks after that move.
in the interim, the internet connection worked fine.

there's another pc in the house, using the same isp, that hasn't had any
trouble staying connected. it has a us robotics modem.

the old modem was a broadxent hcp 56k winmodem. people online
advised me that winmodems can be pretty crappy & that the driver might
be corrupted. i tried updating the driver by uninstalling it in the control
panel, restarting & letting windows re-find & reinstall the driver. that
didn't help. plus -- the process was pretty ambiguous, and i couldn't tell if
a new driver had really been installed or not. the "driver" tab in the
modem's "properties" window always seems to say the same thing about
"microsoft digitally signed" driver, blah blah blah, no matter how many
times i tried to update it. perhaps they really were either different drivers
or different installs of the same driver, but i really couldn't tell. so i ran
this "listmodem" application, learned more about the modem & got a
generic driver from conexant, whose chips this modem used. again -- the
update ended up kinda ambiguous, the "driver" window still read
"microsoft digitally signed," and nothing improved with the connections
being dropped.

some guys online thought the modem itself might be bad, so per that
advice, and the apparently good reputation of us robotics modems, i got a
used 3cp5610a hardware modem from a guy on ebay. i installed the new
modem card yesterday, taking care to ground myself to the chassis, and
upon startup, it autodetected fine & could go online fine. but it's still
having the same problem, even with the new modem. i went to usr's
website yesterday on the "good" computer & downloaded their "control
center" software, with the intention of upgrading the driver and flashing
the modem's rom to the v92 standard. the control center installed ok,
downloading the update went ok (got disconnected once during the
transfer, but it went thru ok on the 2nd try), and the dialog boxes indicated
that the flashing process went fine.

but i've still got the same disconnect problem, and on top of that, if
anything, this usr modem is a lot slower that the previous one. i thought
hardware modems were supposed to be faster than winmodems. and i
doubt this second modem is physically bad, even though used, because
they're both displaying similar symptoms. however, ever since installing
this new modem yesterday, i am getting some funny messages, short of
actual disconnects, about "action cancelled" & "being unable to link to the
page i requested."
it's like this modem really chokes easily.

we have norton systemworks 2003 on this pc, and the automatic virus
definition update seems to happen pretty regularly (although a deliberate
"live update" has failed for me a couple times today because i can't stay
online long enough to download the files), and we run the virus scanner
every week or two, so i assume the virus protection is pretty much up to
date. we also run ad-aware at about the same frequency (although it's
probably been a while since we've tried to update its definition files), and
have used spybot, although we don't know how to update its definition
files. as far as i know, unless i'm missing something, we should be pretty
clear on viruses & spyware. the norton software always says that no
viruses were detected.

also -- changing local isp access numbers makes no difference. does it make a difference whether i dial a number with a "56k/v90" speed rating or a "v90/x2" rating? i don't know much about these ratings.

i swapped out the phone cord this morning, and that made no difference,
either.

i also turned the graphics acceleration to zero, which i'd seen something
somewhere about it being able to possibly interfere with the modem. no
change.

here's the system configuration, per aida32, a few minutes ago:

win xp pro, w/sp2
athlon xp 1733mhz 2100+ processor
msi kt3 ultra2 mobo (5 pci, 1 agp, 1 cnr, 3 dimm, onboard audio)
via vt8367 apollo kt333 chipset
768mb ddr sdram
ami bios (9-11-02)
nvidia geforce4 mx440 w/agp 8x video card (64mb)
floppy drive
western digital wd1200jb hd (120gb, i think)
" " wd400bb hd (40 gb, i think)
cdrw 52 x 24
partitions: c: 114431mb (99412 free)
e: 38162mb (25886 free)
us robotics 56k fax pci modem

i just ran "listmodem" on the new modem, and it returns info about the
modem being an "unknown" brand & model, hcf type, with no win xp
inbuild support. i got this copy of listmodem from conexant's website, so
perhaps it can't recognize usr modems.

i'm very sorry for this being such an extremely long post, but am trying to
be very specific about the problem & attempted fixes thus far, so as to
offer you all the info you might need on this problem. hellllllpppp!

thanks for any help you can offer.

drew j.

[nicolaus corelius]

i probably think the problem is because of ur system. not the comp or the modem.
try reinstalling the windows and see how it works.

[Redfallon]

To absolutely rule out defective modem, have you ran the known-to-be-good modem on the problem PC? And try the problem modem you just bought on the known-to-be-good PC. It doesn't sound like hardware problem, but that will rule it out 100%.

Originally Posted by nicolaus corelius problem is because of ur system. not the comp or the modem.

what "system" that wouldn't be the "comp"?


**edit** I wouldn't resort to a format/reinstall just yet.

[rjfvillarosa]

This sounds like a "noise on the line fault" this condition is generaly caused by water making a short circuit on the phone cables most often as a rectified short. Can you tell me a little about the phone lines in your house, do you have a main NTE with extensions running of it?, is the computer with no problems connected directly to the NTE? do you have any extensions in the bathroom, kitchen or garage?

NTE (network terminating equipment) the very first phone jack in your house that is connected to the incoming cables.

At a guess, if this is a water or corroded termainal fault, it is going to be inside the house or both machines would be affected, the most likely place is the kitchen, is there a phone jack any where near a steam source (kettle or cooker)? are any phone jacks near the floor where a pet could have urinated on it? (seen it and dealt with it more than once), do you have a cellar, is there a phone jack down there?
Finaly have you checked the wiring inside the jack itself or the jack it is fed off for loose or corroded connections?

[PMich]

Have you hooked up the working "good" computer to the phone jack you are using for the problem computer and vice versa? This would probably be the easiest way to determine which side of the wall has the problem first. That USR modem is XP compatible so that doesn't appear to be a problem.

[chunkstyle]

yeah -- i brought the "good" pc downstairs & hooked it up to the jack the troublesome one had been connected to, and it's working great. no disconnects at all. so it's apparently not the phone line.

[rjfvillarosa]

Have you checked the PCI slot on the mother board for cleanliness, is anything going to stop it making good contact with the modem? Have you tried the modem in another PCI slot? What about mother board driver updates?

[chunkstyle]

per your advice, went to msi's website & upgraded my mobo (kt3 ultra2) chipset drivers, to one referred to asa via 4.55. that has not helped the problem.

then i took the modem, which had been in pci slot 4, on com 4,
out and put it into pci slot 5 (don't know yet if it's still on the samecom port after being moved. i'm still having the problem after doing this -- just got kicked off after 13 min.

also -- someone asked about spyware protection. i'm using ad aware se & spybot 1.2 -- just updated both online over the weekend.

[glc]

Spybot 1.2 is obsolete - you need 1.3 (and 1.4 is in beta).

Can you borrow an external serial port modem and a cable from anyone? I'm thinking you may have a PCI bus issue. If you try a serial modem, make sure you reset the port properties to 115200, 8, none, 1, hardware in device manager.

What is the indicated connect speed with the existing modem? We may want to slow it down a bit. If it's a USR, use the V.90/x2 dialup.

Walmart ISP is a customized AOL, right? What version of the software are you using?

[chunkstyle]

no, i don't have access to a serial modem.

the version of walmart connect's software that i'm using is 6.0.2.

when we first signed up for this isp, it seemed like it was just aol rebranded.
but for a while now, the home page that comes up automatically includes "portal.compuserve.com" in the url line. so i'm thinking that maybe now it's compuserve.

wal mart connect had been playing around with the access numbers in our area, too. they added a few, removed a few, and now there are no local numbers with the v90/x2 speed rating available.

this pc typically connects at either 49333 bps or 50666. this session, it's the latter.

is there anything i can do about this without access to a serial modem?

also -- i upgraded to & ran spybot 1.3 today. i'm assuming that updating & running current versions of antivirus or antispyware software can't undo damage caused by previous infestations, if any, unless a restore point was created by the software before the infection. is this correct?

thank you!

[glc]

Compuserve and AOL are one and the same.

Let's try slowing the modem down a tad for a test. In your phone and modem options, modems, properties, advanced - you should see a place for "extra settings" - put this in there:

&U1&N30

This will limit you to 45333. See if it's more stable.

[shazam]

This my be prity dumb but I had a problem about the same. My problem was that the inactive time was set to low. Reset for one hr and every thing is fine.

[chunkstyle]

per your advice, i added that initialization string, and the modem is now only connecting at 45333, but the connections are still dropping.

one thing i remembered today is that, probably about a month or so ago, one of those balloons came up near my system tray telling me about updating to that new windows antispyware utility that microsoft came out with recently
(i believe they bought some 3rd party vendor & hurried it to market under their own name or something like that, if i remember correctly). i don't remember specifically if the problem was occurring before i allowed that app to be installed or not, but it was somewhere close in the time frame. could that update have caused this instability?

as for the inactive time setting, i'll see if i can figure out how to adjust it (don't really know how), but i'd be surprised if that was it, since it orked fine before & i never changed anything in that respect. thanks for the input, though!

[chunkstyle]

still having the problem -- slowing down the connection hasn't helped any. nor did a suggetion i got from another guy about adding an extra initialization string that (i believe) extended the time the modem waits for a reply before timing out.

please help, somebody. i'm about at my wit's end with this.

has abyone ever heard of malware or viruses specifically affecting modems? maybe the pc got infected due to previously outdated ad aware & spybot?

also -- just out of curiosity -- is there some other free isp i can dial into for a while to rule out possible problems with my isp? i don't really want to sign up for any trial of a pay service or anything like that to do this. i highly doubt that the isp is the problem, because of the other household pc that hasn't had trouble with disconnects.

thanks for any help or insight.

[kev18fan]

I found your thread and understand that it is a bit outdated, however I am having the same problem. I was wondering if you ever got the problem solved and if so what did you do? I am in your shoes and really really need some help!

Thanks

[glc]

Kev, you would get better help if you started a new thread - and be just as detailed as this poster was in here. I doubt you have the same equipment - like the exact same modem and ISP. Give us the whole story and we will see what we can come up with.