A friend is having trouble with a PC being able to dial up to AOL, and
I'd like to know if anybody here has any advice.

After a thunderstorm, her modem stopped working. I looked at the
machine at a different location and verified that the modem truly was
dead. I swapped the modem out with a nice hardware controller ISA
modem. (Piece of junk Aptiva has a nearly non-working PCI slot). I
dial up to AOL (8.0) and everything's copacetic.

She takes the machine home and.... same error! No dialtone. I have
her take a regular phone and plug it into the line that the modem is
using, and it works fine.

I have her go into the modem section of the Windows Control panel, and
the modem is recognized and passes the "More Info" diagnostics test.
Which indicates the communication between the modem and computer is
fine. I have her un-check the option to wait for a dialtone before
dialing. Same problem. Does AOL bypass the Windows modem settings
with its own?

I'm thinking the possible options are:
1) Something's just not wired right. From what she describes, it
sounds right (line goes from wall to line-in jack of the modem). But
she's not very tech savvy, so who knows.
2) Something is out of spec enough with her phone line (triggered by the
storm?) that it zaps a modem's ability to detect a dialtone, but it's
good enough to dial up and talk with a regular phone. So although the
modem passes the diagnostics, it was still damaged somehow
3) Something's wrong with the modem configuration. This seems unlikely
since it worked perfectly when it was in my possession.

Has anybody here run into such a situation? I'm sure I'd have a much
better idea of what the problem is if I were there in person, but it's a
two hour drive and with gas prices as they are now that's just not going
to happen!


Thanks
-WD

She probably has it plugged into the wrong port (i.e., phone instead of
data). I've had experience with modems that were labeled incorrectly.

--
I may not be completely certified, but I am completely certifiable.

"Will Dormann" <wdormann@yahoo.com.invalid> wrote in message
newsRJvc.18003$Ba.11453@fe2.columbus.rr.com...

Try a different cord between the computer and the phone jack. Make sure
it's a standard 2-wire analog residential jack. A few weeks ago I had a
situation with a phone jack and about 4 things plugged into it,
including splitters plugged into splitters. I "simplified" things with
a single 4-way splitter, after which some things worked and others
didn't. Turned out that it was a standard RJ-11, but it had two lines
going into it (all 4 wires were used), and some of the "splitters" were
"splitting" the two lines apart to different single-line jacks. I
figured out what was going on without much difficulty, but sometimes an
innocent looking phone-jack isn't as straightforward as it might at
first appear.


Will Dormann wrote:

TechGeekPro wrote:

She supposedly tried both. And when I first installed and tested it,
the line jack seemed to be labeled properly.


-WD

Barry Watzman wrote:


Good idea. I am aware of the differences between the types of
splitters. (I used to work for a company which made caller ID and
voicemail notification types of devices)

I'm not sure how the place is wired, not having been there in person.
What doesn't make sense, though, is that the machine was able to dial
out fine in the past. The thunderstorm changed everything.

I'm not sure whether she should have somebody from the phone company
come out, or somebody who knows computers and modems. Or if there's
some magical beast that does both.


-WD

make sure you go into AOL setup and select the new modem. It may still be
using settings for the old modem. While I don't know about AOL 8/9, I know
on AOL 7 and earlier you often had to go in and tell AOL to use the new
modem.


"Will Dormann" <wdormann@yahoo.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:86Nvc.20397$DG4.12895@fe2.columbus.rr.com...

SBFan2000 wrote:


When I first replaced the modem, I had the AOL software re-detect the
modem. After that it worked fine. When the PC owner reported
problems with the new modem, I had her do the same thing, but that had
no effect on the problem.


-WD

--
Syphillus
"I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious." Albert Einstein

On Thu, 03 Jun 2004 18:11:33 GMT, Will Dormann
<wdormann@yahoo.com.invalid> wrote:

hardware detection whenever it detects a change.

no dial tone, then it's likely what others are hinting at - a physical
wire or connection problem. Have her try a different connection
modular wire and a different phone jack and make sure the wire is
plugged into the line port and not the phone set connection.

You could step her through setting up a DUN connection and seeing if
that dials out (no need to setup a real account, just use a local
number for any isp) or step her through getting hyperterminal to dial
out. If those work, then you know it's not the physical connection or
the modem but likely the AOL software. If it's the software, perhaps
the easiest way to fix it may be to have her add a second install of
AOL in another directory and have it perform a fresh hardware modem
detection.

It's also possible there's a problem with the phone line itself since
the storm (voltage maybe?) that prevents the modem from working
properly. Gary E
--
|Gary A. Edelstein
|edelsgNO@SPAMyahoo.com.invalid (remove NO SPAM and .invalid to reply)
|"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Walt Kelly's Pogo

Gary A. Edelstein wrote:

Could be. Between trying different phone cords, jacks, and having AOL
re-detect the modem, I'm at a loss for what I can do remotely.

It took about 15 minutes for her to grasp concept of "connect the phone
line that leads to the back of your computer into an actual telephone
instead" to her, so I wasn't about to have her go into Hyperterminal and
start typing AT commands.

I seem to have reached the point of diminishing returns with this
project, so I've relegated it to be solved by somebody who can be there
*in person*.

Thanks for the advice, though. I was hoping that I had overlooked
something simple, but that doesn't seem to be the case.


-WD

Does she have "Call Waiting"? If so disable it.

When I have problems I set up a new Internet connection and type in the
phone number for my mobile phone. If it rings at least you know that you
have a good physical line out, which leaves you to re-configure the dial-up
settings. Some files may have been corrupted by the power surge created by
the lightening. I use a good surge protector with compensation guarantee.

"Will Dormann" <wdormann@yahoo.com.invalid> wrote in message
newsRJvc.18003$Ba.11453@fe2.columbus.rr.com...

Will Dormann wrote:

I realize this reply is 2-1/2 months after the original post but let me try it
anyway. It may save someone a hair-pulling session.

There is a carbon thing that screws into the drop box at the outside of the
house. This acts as some kind of surge supressor and the storm may have
damaged it so that the phone can still get a dial tone but the modem may be
having trouble picking up a strong enough tone to respond. This would answer
why it works at your place but not at her home. If this WAG is right, it needs
to be fixed a telco tech, I don't think these are available to the public.

Bert