Hugolino Posted April 27, 2004 Report Share Posted April 27, 2004 Can anyone offer suggestions to a Californian who has already pre-ordered Mandrake Linux 10.0 and wants to find a decent price on a compatible 56k dial-up modem? Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted April 27, 2004 Report Share Posted April 27, 2004 (edited) I noticed a couple of weeks ago that Fry's Electronics had the External US Robotics 5686 for $70.00. I paid $110.00 a year ago . Hook it up and point kppp or drakconnect to ttyS0 (com1) and you're done (except for maybe dns of your isp)....but the point is that the driver is in the kernel, so you don't have to worry about driver installation/configuration. I loved it. Expensive? The US Robotics Controlled PCI 5610B (if you can find it) is the next one I'd go for. Same driver....in the kernel....no driver install needed (ttyS4/com5). It's around $40.00. These are Houston, Texas prices. Oh, and welcome to the board! :D Edited April 27, 2004 by bvc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted April 27, 2004 Report Share Posted April 27, 2004 Yes, external modems are a great investment. Using one will make a pretty big difference in speed when dialed out to the internet. If you buy an internal, you risk it being a winmodem, and the you have to deal with finding drivers for it and getting it to work! External is -much- easier, and better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hugolino Posted April 28, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 28, 2004 Oh, and welcome to the board! :D Thanks! My eldest brother convinced me to try Mandrake Linux when he helped build me a new computer late last summer, and I'm still pretty clueless with it. I didn't realize this free Mandrake forum existed until today (April 27th), and I wish I had found it earlier! Yes, external modems are a great investment. My brother actually gave me an old Conexant modem (not a WinModem) when he built my computer, but the commercial Linux drivers for it require a small fee and when I loaded the crippled trial version I discovered it hadn't been updated for two Linux kernal releases (see linuxant.com). Since money was tight, I've limped along for many months since then, but am ready and able to change that now. I'm still debating whether it would be better to buy a license for an outdated modem driver or to just buy a modem that would be recognized already. It seemed to make more sense to me to buy a new modem instead of having to pay a fee to upgrade my modem driver every few Linux releases, especially when its already outdated. What do you guys think? Should I stick with Conexant or move to a new modem? :unsure: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qchem Posted April 28, 2004 Report Share Posted April 28, 2004 I'd move to a new modem myself - those Conexant drivers restrict what you can do regarding updating to new kernels etc. I bought a Zoom external modem a couple of years ago (can't remember the model number off hand) which cost about £40 and worked perfectly with no tweaking needed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WilliamS Posted April 28, 2004 Report Share Posted April 28, 2004 I bought my external modem here for about $17. http://www.compgeeks.com/ Works perfectly, no fuss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technonoid Posted April 28, 2004 Report Share Posted April 28, 2004 In case you want a good internal modem... http://www.usr.com/products/home/home-prod...sp?sku=USR5610B Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hugolino Posted May 6, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 6, 2004 Greetings all, I did buy a U.S. Robotics Controlled PCI 5610B modem, which installed fine after two hours of dealing with an apparent IRQ conflict and trying to figure out where to find the device (/dev/modem). But one strange thing is that in the past three days I've only been able to connect at 14.4 speed, even though my provider supports V.92 at 56K. Any ideas? I'm still running Mandrake 9.2 until my latest version arrives by mail. Is this a problem that will clear up in Mandrake 10.0? Thanks for your help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted May 6, 2004 Report Share Posted May 6, 2004 have you checked your settings? I can't imagine that if there's an actual problem with the moden that it would knock itself down to 14K, though I guess that's possible (I'm no hardware guru). I see no other possibilities, than software settings, hardware failure or isp problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hugolino Posted May 30, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 30, 2004 It doesn't appear to be an ISP problem, and the settings seem to be fine. But all is not perfectly well, because when I use the Mandrake configuration utility to check the hardware the modem shows up among the question marked devices (as the right U.S. Robotics modem, but without a driver listed). I'm using KPPP to connect to the Internet and the settings appear to be fine. KPPP is pointed to /device/modem which seems to be the only thing that works, and the speed of the modem is listed (currently) at 110K (in the KPPP settings that is). But the actual connection speed is always listed as 14.4 K Is there any way to test the modem or my settings? Query modem always appears to work and gives back all the correct information for my modem. Thanks for any help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest markx Posted May 31, 2004 Report Share Posted May 31, 2004 Reminds me of a problem I had back in my unenlightened days of running windows. My 56k Mitsubishi internal would only work after adding some commands to initialisation string, but would never go faster than 33.6k. The ISP techies said this was because of irreconcilable differences between their equipment and my modem. Would it be worth calling your ISP in your case? That was the only way I ever got connected using my Mitsubishi. Best of luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted May 31, 2004 Report Share Posted May 31, 2004 Other than trying wvdial or your own ppp scripts, I don't know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hugolino Posted June 11, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2004 Hooray for U.S. Robotics (3Com)! :D I wrote two e-mails to their technical support guys, and (after they learned I was using Linux and not Windows) they solved the problem with a long modem initialization string! How awesome! 6/10/2004 Re: Email ID 3184248 Dear Sir/Madam, Thank you for choosing U.S. Robotics. Try using the followng string: AT&F1X3 +PMH=1 +PQC=3 +PIG=1 I would like to thank you for the opportunity to assist you. Should you require further assistance with your U.S. Robotics product, please feel free to contact us again. Again, thank you for choosing U.S. Robotics. If you need to reply to this message for more information or to answer any questions we might have asked you, please click on Reply and include all previous correspondence. This allows us to track your issue more efficiently and to resolve your issue more quickly. Your feedback is important to us. Please visit our web site at http://www.usr.com/feedback in order to rate your support experience. Sincerely, Desmond -----Original Message----- Sent:10/06/04 Subject:Re: Case ID:3183453 Ah, but I can't use the Control Center because I'm using Mandrake Linux (not Windows). So to disable v.92 I would think that I'd need to use the initialization code. I tried to follow the user's guide and disable v.92 but I apparently did so incorrectly because it didn't seem to change anything. Even when I tried to put in the initialization code requiring a minimum connection speed of 33.6k it still kept connecting at 14k. So I think I did not understand the user's guide correctly. Thank you for your help. Three cheers for a company that actually is able to help clueless Linux users! And three cheers for you guys for helping me to narrow down the problem in the first place! :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdion81 Posted June 11, 2004 Report Share Posted June 11, 2004 just a quick note, I found an external modem for 16.5 here: http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CDIMM00131-PB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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