PC shutting down

[mutt]

I’ve recently upgraded to a new 800 mhz PC with a Sportster 56K internal modem. This PC has a habit of shutting itself down when the modem connects to the local ISP. It doesn’t happen every time, but when it does, it waits until the handshake and then bang, total reboot!
Any ideas?

Thanks

Mutt

[spannersatcx]

Is the modem a hardware or software modem? If it is a software one I would suggest getting rid and getting an external one. Software modems are notoriously (not sure of spelling it's been a looooong day) bad and do things like this.

[matelot]

Spanners has a point: a 'software' or 'Winmodem' is basically software controlled, and fits one of your PCI slots. Personal experience is that they are troublesome.

For well under £50 you can get an ISA slot internal modem, or go for an external one.

Other than that I'm racking my brains for a solution, but it's a bit early yet!

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Me, sweat? I'm that cool, it's condensation.

[R O Tiree]

Sportster has a fairly good rep, unlike others I could mention. If your computer is home-built, then you might try re-seating the modem, or changing it to a different slot. If re-seating works, it may have been a bit of fluff, or not seated properly in the first place. If changing slots works, you may have a duff motherboard. If so, change it under warranty.

If, however, you bought your computer commercially, and the modem has never worked properly, get the bu&&ers to come out and fix it (I'm assuming you have on-site warranty? Most retailers do this these days) If you haven't got on-site warranty, get onto their help line. The spotty little oik with 2 minutes experience will try and run up your phone bill with stupid questions (why else are they premium rate lines?). If he does, cut him short and ask to speak to a supervisor.

Even if you don't have a specifically on-site warranty, if the modem has never worked properly, you can get them on "Goods not of merchantable quality". A few years ago, I had a problem with a computer, went round the houses talking to spotty little oiks, never the same one twice, had to explain the problem all over again, got asked the same stupid questions all over again, etc, etc. Eventually, I got put through to one of their legal-eagles, who started, not very subtly, to threaten me with all sorts of dire, but undefined, consequences if I did not stop hassling them. I threw into the negotiations the fact that I had talked to a couple of the consumer editors on a couple of magazines, and that they were very interested in how things panned out, win or lose. 15 mins later he was back on the phone with a returns number and my confuser was back with me, working correctly about 1 week later.

One of the problems that I have seen in the past with a WinModem is the speed of the COM port it connects to. Click Start=>Settings=>Control Panel, double click on System, double click Modems, double click Sportster 56k (or whatever it says) A new window will open. Click on the Modem tab and it should tell you there which port it is connected to. At the bottom you will see the speed of the port. If it is set to anything less than 115200 you can end up with dropped connections, slow connections, hang-ups, all sorts. If you can't change the speed of the port, you are in a world of hurt, and it is up to the supplier to fix it as above.

Hope all the above dribbling helps....

TTFN

[ExSimGuy]

R O Tiree,

Nice thought if Mutt were in UK or USA etc - but you obviously don't know that he lives in a place where there's a lot of sand dunes, warranty expires the moment you walk out of the shop, and goods are often of rather less than "merchantable quality"

Mutt,

I don't think that Sportster is one of those cheapy modems that uses your Pentium for processing power - have you tried your old modem? (or is it your old modem and worked fine with the old computer?)

One of the problems where we are is that some ISPs actually ask you to set your modem to 38.4k (I doubt if 56k does anyone any good here anyway - at home I suffer with 28k on a good day! Although I have never heard of a faster setting causing crashes! Might be worth experimenting a bit.

If you still have your old system it would be worth "swapping about" a bit. But don't forget to load the drivers for any different modem (or let Windows install "generic 56k" if you don't still have the discs - this works reasonably well)

Good luck!

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---- "Per Ardua ad Mixas" ----
(Through hardship to the bars)

[Dimsim]

Just a thought but have you overclocked your CPU, or is it an 800Mhz that's really only a 700Mhz. Maybe worth trying a lower clock speed. Also check your fans (case and cpu)and ventilation is not blocked.

[R O Tiree]

Having also sampled the land of sand, cranially applied towels and women disguised as Guinness bottles, all I can say is, "Aah. Right...."

[mutt]

Guys, Thanks for the advice. I returned the internal modem to the shop and replaced it with an external one. 4 Days later the problem hasn’t re-occurred.

A 2nd problem that I had with this PC was the screen kept going red after a couple of hours of use. As the screen isnt new, I reckoned that it was on the way out, but after removing the internal modem, which was seated beside the graphics card, this problem has also disappeared. I’m therefore guessing that both of my problems were caused by a heat build up in the case??? Any comments.

ESG, what do you mean there is no warrantee? Your PC is guaranteed to work for a year, inshallah!! :) Over here we are getting 26-28k using PTT lines, but Zajil have installed a server within our compound, theoretically we are getting 33.6k on that.

Mutt ;)