P4C800-E Deluxe - Modem Problems

Well three weeks later, after building my new PC, around an Asus P4C800-e
Deluxe Motherboard, I am still having problems installing a modem.

First up, I had an old Speed+ Com Serial port modem lying around and after
tracing XP drivers (I'm running XP Pro SP1a) I experienced frequent random
lock-ups necessitating reboots.

Next I found a new but cheap NetoDragon PCI internal modem bought at PC
World and after reading about problems with this modem on a website, I
configured the "country setting" to United States and I got it working.
However when it came to reconnecting, say after a cut-off, or after
Freeserve's 2 hour limit, again I would experience lock-ups necessitating
reboots.

Third I bought a Conexant/Rockwell (not sure of the manufacturer) USB port
modem - installed as a Softk56 modem in device manager. It connects nicely,
but will not under any circumstance, hang up properly, releasing the line
connection. After it supposedly disconnects, on the next dial up, the dial
up icon appears as normal and when executing it, a message appears saying
"opening port", where it stays indefinitely - no error message. The only
way to free up the line or more importantly to reconnect is another reboot
!!! Indeed with this modem XP hangs at the screen immediately before
switching off, which says "saving settings". The only way to close down is
to manually press the switch off button for 4 seconds. During a session
which does not utilise the modem, Windows shuts down perfectly.

I am about to go into town to buy a more recognised 56K PCI internal modem,
in the hope that I can get it working but three in a row - I have never had
these problems before and when I rang Freeserve, they said it was a driver
or installation problem and they could not help me, pointing me to the
manufacturer of the modem if I wanted further assistance. I have been
fitting modems for years and know what I am doing and never come across
these problems before. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling 'till I'm
blue in the face with no luck. I have tried putting the modem in slots 2,3
and 5 again with no luck.

I recognise that the three modems I've tried are on the "cheap" side but I'm
beginning to think that it might be my system.

My System: -

Asus P4C800-E Deluxe (version 10 Bios) : Intel P4 3.0 Ghz CPU (800fsb) :
Cooling - Zalman Al/Cu 7000 Cooler : Case - Thermaltake Xaser III Series
: Kingston Value Ram - 2 x 512Gb PC 3200 working in Dual DDR 400 Mode -
KVR400X64C3A/51 : Hercules Prophet 3D Radeon 9800 Pro (128Mb) : PSU -
Antec TruePower 550Watt : RAID Arrays - OS - 2 x WD Raptors 36Gb 10000rpm
SATA (150) in RAID 0 config (on Intel ICH5R) - Storage - 2 x Seagate
Barracuda 7's 160Gb 7200rpm SATA (150) in RAID 0 config (on Promise) :
Iomega Dual DVD +/- Writer (PM) : Aopen DVD Rom (SM) : SoundBlaster
Audigy 2 ZS (pci slot 4) : Pinnacle DV 500 Capture Card (pci slot 1) :
OS - Windows XP Pro (SP1a)

If someone could point me in the right direction I would appreciate it very
much. By the way I am running 2 x Anytime Freeserve on my two phone lines -
we don't get broadband until 11.02.2004

Paul


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