Modem drops Connection

Hi Towwire,

Welcome to the merry world of modem configuration.

I don't know specifically what might cause the connection to drop. No doubt there are many settings that would affect this. My method is to begin slowly tinkering with the settings on the KPPP configuration tabs.

Here's one place you might start: the connection speed is often set too high by default. The result is usually a much *slower* and less stable connection. So go to the modem configuration tab and drop the connection speed a couple of settings. See what happens.

Hi Malanrich

I'm not sure it's a merry world, but it is a Learning world.

I have the connect speed set at 34800, a lot lower then it started with.

I have read and searched to find answers, which usually works for me, not this time. The other three Modems (winmodems)I tried could not even connect. Any way where I live, the phone wire is not very good and no matter what computer used, the best speed is 28.8 normaly 26.4. Take the same computers else where and they will connect a lot faster. I even took a computer outside and connected it to the phone wire where it comes into the house, no improvement.

THANKS for trying to help.

Hi Towwire. See, I told you malanrich would respond. Mark, Towwire first contacted me via private message.

RATS, I had actually written this a moment ago, and then I lost MY connection, so my original post got wiped out

OK, let me try this again...

Towwire, the questions and statements that I make may sound strange, but here goes!

Do you have any wireless phones in close proximity to your computer (within about 3 feet)? Do you have any large fans or heaters or other non-compuer stuff plugged into the same outlets as the computer?

The reason I ask the above questions is to try to isolate the problem(s). The problem is that these can be a pain to find, but usually, once isolated, can be fairly simple to remedy.

If you have fans or other non-computer stuff, that nas some type of motor, it can cause huge amounts of electronic noise that will mess up computers good. To isolate this as a cause DISCONNECT ANY NON-COMPUTER STUFF from the plugs (don't just turn them off).

Next, very much a stab in the dark, is whether you have any wireless phones within a couple feet of the computer. This is usually a possible problem with WiFi connections and not physical, wired modem connections. But if you do have this type of phone, for a test, move the phone to another room and see what happens.

Here's a suggestion you probably won't like Have you tested your equipment with a different OS and/or at a different location entirely. In other words, take your equipment to a friend's house and try to dial the same numbers. How does it work?

Please let us know how things turn out and we'll see if we can help you solve this problem.

Jon

No computer is magic, no operating system is magic, no website is magic. They all require human interaction, thought, and responsibility to work.

Hi Jon,

One wireless phone in the house, not near the computer, base for it is about 20 feet away and in a different room.

The only thing that is pluged into this outlet is the computer, printer (turned off), monitor and the power speakers, all plug into a battery backup_surge protector.

Have not tried a different OS, But did try the modem in a different computer and it stayed on for 10 hours. My computers are on one phone line and my voice on another line. Hope I've answer all you asked for, and now will try some of what you suggest.

1. will try in another room first.
2. then will install another OS
3. then will try my mother-unlaws house-I do her computer work
4. it maybe some time before I get back to you, could the fans in the computer be a problem there are 5?

About the computer I save $ to build:
Case is Antec P190 2 power supplies 650W for MB & 550W for everything else, 5 fans, one near the modem
MB is Asus M2N32-WS Pro
CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 6000+
Memory 4GB Patriot DDR2-800 PC2-6400 EP Dual Channel
HD Seagate 250GB Barracuda ATA - bought new as a spare
DVD Lite-On LH-20AIS 20X DVD+-RW
Old Mitsumi FD
Video MSI GeForce 7900 GS Overclock 512MB PCI-E Dual-DVI
Monitor Samsung 215TW SyncMaster 21in Analog/Digital LCD

Had to save $ so tried 3 winmodems could not get to work so bought a new USR 5610b
Towwire

Hmm Towwire...

Well, the physical environment looks ok. No, I don't suspect that the internal fans are causing a problem.

I apologize. I didn't even see your mention that the wiring coming into your home is not the best

Since you have tried the modem on a different computer (and it worked), and yet trying it on your main box produces failure, leads me to two possibilities:
1) There's something wrong with your main computer/mobo/serial port
2) There's something wrong with the operating system.

So try a different OS and see what happens.

Jon

No computer is magic, no operating system is magic, no website is magic. They all require human interaction, thought, and responsibility to work.

Towwire:

One more comment about modem configuration: If you're using KPPP on both systems to test the modem (with identical settings) then you can be pretty confident (?) that the problem is elsewhere in hardware. But if you've plugged the modem into another computer running a different dialer, that *may* make a difference. Some of the default settings of a particular dialer may be incompatible with what your ISP likes.

Hi Jon & Malanrich,

Sorry it took so long for me to get back here. I'll tell you what I've done and as normal it took longer to do then expected. Please tell me what you think. This will be a long read.

Moved the machine to a couple of locations did not take the speakers or printer, just the keyboard, mouse and monitor. Tried to keep the setup the same for testing. It still loss the carrier between 5 minutes and 30 minutes, never went longer. I would watch the Kppp status window and could see when it lost the carrier and in a short time Kppp would redial. It did the same surfing or downloading a file. All locations had another computer so would switch to them and dial the same ISP, with the same user etc. and test for over an hour, worked fine.

I talked to my ISP and they do not support Linux but say that any OS should work once connect. Since I can connect to them everything should work. Are they dropping me off? Do not think so as I have had my other computer connected and downloading files for over 5 Days. SO it seems like it's the modem, but then I had tried the modem in my other machine before I asked for help and it worked for over 10 hours downloading a file.

I was thinking it must be Linux, but to check out the new machine to be sure I would install another OS. Since I had a Windows 98SE disk handy, I would try it. Opps to much memory 98 will run on 1-gig but not 4-gig. Now I had to hunt for an XP disk. Finally found the one for my HP laptop which has an AMD64. So I made a 10,000 mb partition to install XP Home SP2 to it. I just went with the defaults and after installing it, installed another firewall. Found a copy of Firefox 1.5.0.9 so tried installing it. Here comes the problem, every time I try to start firefox, the system reboots. Then installed a file downloader to do an iso, so I need not use IE. Knew I would not do it all but ran OK for an hour so rebooted and started another test. Which seemed ok for about 40 minutes and then everthing started to slow down. XP ended up doing just like Linux except it did not redial on its own. XP would only see 3.5 gig of memory and I wondered if I had othe problems. Removed 2 gigs of memory and tested XP again, still the same.

Now I'm thinking that I may have problems with either MB, Cpu or memory which are all brand new. Since I do not have any program that could test the cpu, I use linux memory test instead of booting. Ran it for 5 runs and it passed all tests. Just could not think why firefox in xp would reboot the system. Xp's firewall was turned off and I was running Zone alarm, so tried deleting zone alarm, firefox worked ok then. But Xp still did the same as linux when it came to the modem.

So we are back to the modem being the problem, I think. So I put the modem in the machine that it ran on for over 10 hours, to test it again. This machine has an AMD Athlon XP 1500+ but only 128mb memory running Win98SE without IE installed. This time it does the same as XP and Linux.

Summary and question;

1. I do not think that I have any problem with MB, Cpu or memory. Linux and XP seem to run fine except when it comes to dialing in to the Internet.

2. The test took so long because of the memory test and I tested 2 new USR 5610b modems on Linux and XP. Could both modems be bad??? ....must be...as both worked the same

3. XP seem to work fine when I installed a winmodem.

4. I did try to shorten my notes up a bit, this is long enough as it is.

5. I think I need to return the modems. But which one(need two) do I get now???

Or is there anything else I should try, give me your opinions please.

P.S. I'm putting Linux on the new machine (MY Wife's) and will be doing so on all my machines which now have MS on them. Sorry Bill Gates.

Towwire

Thanks Towwire for the detailed info! Man, this is a tricky one!

Here's another stab in the dark (duck!). Although you state that the motherboard is "new", search this forum for some posts on "leaking capacitors". That can happen with OLD mobos and can cause serious problems. I don't remember who posted the articles, but there are pictures that you can compare to your system, just to be sure.

Mark, you've been watching the "External Modem Scene". Any suggestions on a different, non-winmodem brand?

I keep wanting to think that noise is being introduced to the line. How's the phone line that connects the modem to the wall?

Another thought. How about downloading the software to connect to Netzero. They have a free account (at least for a while), and they have different phone numbers. There is also software to allow using Netzero in Mepis (though I have not played with it for a while). By using a different ISP, with different numbers, perhaps that will isolate things a bit more. If you keep having the same hangup problem with them, then it almost certainly is the modem/software.

Man, I'm running out of ideas!

Jon

No computer is magic, no operating system is magic, no website is magic. They all require human interaction, thought, and responsibility to work.

...and have been using them (and the OEM version w/ a 2xxx type ID) since Simply Mepis 2006.04. It uses COM 5 and I also use it w/ NetZero (which BTW, likes to be run as root).

I had to create a permanent simlink linking ttyS4 to dev/modem, since this is what the NetZero software expects. I could not stay attached just using KPPP, as others have stated in these forums.

The Tramp

Hi all,

If I'm reading Towwire's explanations correctly, the problem is that he's getting inconsistent results, right? (The malfunction gets narrowed to the modem, except that in other circumstances the modem performs fine...). So it sounds as though the problem is caused by some elements combining in some weird way.

Saddletramp: When you say "I had to create a permanent simlink linking ttyS4 to dev/modem, since this is what the NetZero software expects. I could not stay attached just using KPPP," could you clarify what "staying attached" means? Did the connection poop out at about the time Towwire is having his problem?

Maybe Saddletramp is on to a solution here. But if Towwire is looking for external modems, consider Creative Modem Blaster V.92 (I've used one for years, and it's worked on all the flavors of Linux I've tried).

Hi saddletramp

You say that you are using the USR 5610b oem version with no problems? Do not understand where you found the 2xxxtype ID.

I'm trying to figure out if I need to return the modems while I can still do so. Here's a short recap.

1. Could not get any of the winmodems I have to work, did not want to pay for drivers and find out that they would not work in a later version. From my searches that seems to happen.

2. Bought 2 USR 5610b, just used one at first trying to get it to work, no go. So put it in a Win98 machine and I stayed connect for over 10 hours. That's when I asked for help.

3. Tried both new modems in Mepis and XP, neither system would connect for longer than 30 minutes, most of the time only 1o minutes.

4. Then tried both in the Win98 machine, they did the same as Mepis and XP - 10 to 30 minutes.

So, are the modems bad?

With the 98machine it took me almost 5 days to download Mepis 6.5.02_64 at 26400 connection, and no diconnects.

For Jon all the house cables are brand new to the phone co. lines.
Have some other things to do so will check back at 1700 Pacific time......THANKS

Towwire

I don't know if Towwire's using NetZero or not but in my case, I could not keep a connection w/ NetZero w/out their software. Some folks had reported that they could use just KPPP but I could never stay connected that way. I could connect and stay connected to Earthlink w/out their software.

I am using the 5610B internal pci controller-based modem and it works great. The 2xxx is an OEM number but it is a similar modem. I have one of these, too.

If you are willing to spend that kind of money (my internal controller-based modems were not cheap) then you might want to consider Malanrich's suggestion and try the External Creative Modem Blaster. I ran a M$ Fax Server for years with several of those modems working side by side and it thankfully was one model of hardware that I didn't have to worry about that much (can't say much about that software, tho, AHEM...)

If I remember correctly, they kind of had that "Darth Vader" look to them.

The Tramp

Hmm...

I'm going to have to check the model number on an external modem (an old model) that I just packed away for moving. I have not used it in years, so I don't know if it's the one that you mentioned Saddletramp.

I don't know if towwire's using Netzero either; although I suggested that he try it, via PM, to isolate whether there might actually be a problem with the ISP.

Saddletramp, for the education of our viewers (grin), did you just set up a permanent link via the "ln -s" command to allow Netzero to work?

$ su
Password: (enter root's password)
# ln -s /dev/ttyS4 /dev/modem

Jon

No computer is magic, no operating system is magic, no website is magic. They all require human interaction, thought, and responsibility to work.

Hi Everyone,

First a question for Sattletramp. What is the filmware version on your modem's? The 2 I bought are oem versions, static wrap and nothung else. They are v5.22.91 filmware.

My isp is ncplus.net, no software need if you can setup a dial-in network. They do have a dialer you can use with MS windows but I never have.

The modems have been tried in 4 machines now and they do the same in all of them. The last one was in an Amd K6, 25 miles from my home. It did connect at 49333 instead of my 26400. I think that it rules out my crappy phone line being the problem, it was with My isp and I did try with a free isp (nocharge.com) but they are in some way connected to ncplus.net.

So we are back to it being either the isp or the modems. Wish I could afford broadband but then the only one is the cable company I dislike.

I know 2 bad modems back to back seems wierd...but I had an IBM hard drive, replaced 4 times before I stopped buying them.

Towwire

Try using a different dialer. wvdial is a command line dialer, and for me it works where kppp doesn't (though I hardly ever use a modem)

Newbie or not Newbie, there's always a question

That's the line alright but I had to put it in a file and have it be initialized at startup. I took notes on what I have been doing but I don't know where they are. Sorry, I will look for them tonite.

I am sure that I have old firmware in both because I bought these modems years ago; they might even be V.90 instead of V.92. I will look at this tonite as well.

The Tramp

I remember them, YECH!

The Tramp

Towwire,

It's beginning to look like the modems are the problem. Still, I think carlops is right to try a different dialer before you spring for new modems.

Different dialers give you control over different aspects of dialing up. For example, WVdial and others (Chestnut?) allow you to configure "stupid mode" (which, if I recall, lets you connect to "noisy" phone lines when other dialers would drop the connection).

So you're probably going to end up buying new modems, but playing with a couple of other dialers would be good experience for anyone relying on dial-up. Check Google to see whether I've got the right take on "stupid mode."

Hi EVERYONE,

Just to let everyone know, I'm a seaman by trade, tugboats, so my user name should make since now. I will be going on a trip very shortly, so I'm running out of time, will be gone for about 2 months. Will make a post just before I leave letting everyone know I will not be around.

I hate to return the modems but at this moment, it seems the best thing to do. Could not get them to work for lomger than 30 minutes On 4 different window machines. I did use the latest inf file which puts the modems comands into the registry. The only time I've had modem problems with windows was when the modem was bad and the OS could not find it. I have some old isa modems but isa slots are no more.

I found an old copy of Microscope which boots itself, don't have the plugin board. Builders use it to test systems, and it says the modems are ok when it comes to connecting but there is no way to put a load on them for a long period of time.

Am I wrong? If they worked in Windows then I would know that they where good and I just had some problem to figure out in Linux. Thought of trying an old version of the filmware but don't know if I could return them then. If I had more time I would find someone who usees another isp, which could rule my isp as the problem or the modem.

Towwire

Hi Everyone,

I contacted USR support, since the modems will connect but not stay connected in any OS. They had me try some things, still the same, 10 to 30 minutes connect time so far. If they can not get them working in MS windows, I will return the modems, and start again when I get back from my trip. I may not make any more posts till I return but will let everyone know what happens. I also know caps are like shouting but this should be shouted.

THANKS FOR ALL YOUR HELP

Towwire

Have a good trip Towwire, and stay away from the shoals!

We'll see you (figuratively) when you get back.

Jon

No computer is magic, no operating system is magic, no website is magic. They all require human interaction, thought, and responsibility to work.

And trying to get info for Towwire and Jon.

Modem is indeed a 5601B and firmware is V5.19.2. I was surprised to notice that the 6.5 version of Simply Mepis that I am using is RC1 so I really haven't tested this modem on the latest version (although I have installed the latest version for other folks w/ SmartLink modems).

For those that would like to know how I install NetZero on Simply Mepis up to version 6.5 RC 1, here goes:

Keep in mind that I'm a refugee from the M$ camps. First I download the NetZero.deb file and put it on some kind of media that I can take home.

I then log into Mepis as root and see the root desktop. I double-click on the NetZero.deb file and let KPackage install it. It usually leaves a shortcut on the desktop.

Right-click and copy this shortcut and paste it in the user's desktop folder. Then right-click on this shortcut and fix it to "run as root." (It will ask for the root password before you can run it as a user).

Then I go to /etc/init.d and create a text file with this line inside it:

ln -s /dev/ttyS4 /dev/modem

Then open a terminal and type:

chmod +x /etc/init.d/[filename]
update -rc.d [filename] defaults 80

Then I log in as the user and try it out. It usually works. The first time NetZero starts your browser, it starts it as root so I usually get out of this instance and start a new one which is the user's.

I know there are probably better ways to do this in the CLI but I am not yet that fluent in the language although I think I understand the basic concepts. Any tips would be welcomed...

The Tramp

Thank you saddletramp for providing the details. Netzero was "supported" not too long ago by one version of Mepis (I think 3.3 or 3.4). By "supported" I mean that there was an icon provided on the desktop inviting you to sign up with Netzero. Then, of course, Netzero (along with Juno), was one of the first ISPs to openly acknowledge that "some users actually USE Linux"

I doubt my old Netzero account still works, but I'll have to add this to my calendar to see if I can reactivate it and try your technique.

Thank you for your help for future Mepis-Netzero-Problemators

Jon

No computer is magic, no operating system is magic, no website is magic. They all require human interaction, thought, and responsibility to work.

Hi Everyone
Well, I'm back home. Getting ready to try again on the new computer. The USR5610 modems were sent back, got stuck with 15% restocking fee. USR support could not help even with Windows, they would only say connected when lowered to 14,400,

Ordered
"A Zoom Model 3095F V.92 USB Mini External Miniature 56K modem works with Windows, Mac, and Linux computers, an on-board digital signal processor and controller maximize system stability and performance."

Should be here next week. Anyone know anything about this modem? My brother and I talked about using an external and with newer computers dropping serial and parallel ports that maybe I should try USB as it should be on computers longer. The motherboard only has one PCI slot, the rest are PCIe's. We will see what happens when it comes in, I will be the test case.

Towwire

Welcome back Towwire!

I don't know anything about that modem, but look forward to seeing if we can get you up and running on this box

Jon

The ability to comfortably use a computer is directly proportional to desire to listen, learn, and experiment, and is inversely proportional to the fear, anger, and stubbornness that you show.

Sorry about coming to this thread late. Don't know much about usb modems for dial-up but may have some suggestions for dial-up if the usb modem doesn't cut it for you.

External serial modems have been the most trouble free for me but require some extra toys to use if you don't have a serial port. I bought a cheap usb to serial adaptor cable which worked well. There are apparently two different drivers depending upon the adapter but both are included in Linux. Simply plug it in and reboot. In a terminal use dmesg to find out if it was recognized and what port was assigned. In my case it was ttyUSB0.

Then just create symbolic link between that device and /dev/modem as Saddletramp indicated in his post above..

ln -s /dev/ttyUSB0 /dev/modem

Put the right port (ttyUSB0 or whatever) in Kppp and you're ready to roll.

There was also a thread over at Mepislovers about some problems with dial-up connections in the last two Mepis releases. I had a similar problem in sustaining a dial-up connection. The solution was editing the /etc/ppp/options file and changing the default MRU/MTU values to either 808 or 680 (may vary depending upon connection). If you search for MTU at Mepislovers I think it will pop up the thread with a very detailed explanation. Worked for me. Before that I could not do a dial-up download of more than 1 meg total without losing the connection.

Of course if the usb modem works then nevermind.