Ok. Last time I had to buy a modem was long ago. Almost all modems were ISA modems IIRC, and all (most?) PCI modems were ‘winmodems’.
Everyone said to stay away from winmodems because they didn’t have internal processors and had to constantly interrupt the CPU to process information. This also meant that if the CPU was too busy to handle the modem’s data, it would be dropped/lost.
Anyway. So I got a really good US Robotics 56k internal ISA modem. I bought a good quality motherboard that had an ISA port as a bonus feature. I’m looking to upgrade now, though.
No good new boards as far as I can see carry ISA ports. So I’ll have to upgrade to a PCI modem. Are they all still crap, or are new PCI modems just as good as old ISA modems were? Do they have internal processors so they no longer drop packets when the CPU is busy, etc.? What’s the general price range for a good 56k pci modem?
Btw, before you say it, I can’t get cable or DSL or I wouldn’t be asking this.
I’ve heard the same things said about winmodems, but honetsly I can’t tell the difference in general use. I suppose if you were using the thing for online gaming (which I don’t), then you might notice the processor hit, but for web surfing, I think you’d be hard-pressed to notice.
AFAIK most PCI modems are now NOT winmodems - the lowest price card you can find probably will be, but you don’t have to increase the price by a very much at all before you’re looking at quite acceptable units.
If you get an external serial modem (not sure about USB), it’ll almost certainly be hardware based. I chose my Creative Labs Modem Blaster for just that reason. For internal modems, check the price–you probably can’t get a hardware modem for less than $50.
That said, CPUs are a lot faster now than they were when you bought the ISA modem. Winmodems aren’t such a bad idea anymore, many of them can be used under Linux, and you can upgrade them just by getting new drivers.
Guess it’s been a while since I shopped for modems, too. I poked around on buy.com and it looks like you may only have to spend $25-$40 for a hardware modem. It can be hard to tell from the descriptions, though… stay away from anything marked “soft”, “Conexant”, or “HSF”.
Assume that any internal modem is a Winmodem, unless the seller will refund all your money if it isn’t. Real hardware modems require no drivers except a generic Windows device driver included in Windows. -And Winmodems don’t work as well: they run slower and lose connections much more often.
Buy an external serial-port modem; it’s the best way to be sure you’re getting hardware.
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Most PCI modems are winmodems, but there are still hardware ones to be had. Look for ones that will work under DOS and Linux. They’re usually in the $50-$90 range.
not all PCI modems are software “winmodems”
the cheap ones are definitely winmodems but like the previous post… look around the $50-100 range for hardware modems.
most will either say winmodem or hardware as a feature on the box or ad.
but in terms of CPU usage… i think the concern was more with the older CPUs. If you have 2ghz computer… i doubt the modem will use that much power.
USR 56K V.92 Performance Pro Modem
is a hardware modem $80US.
My employer does performance tests on a lot of modems, and US Robotics consistently outperforms the competition. This is not an official endorsement, but if they’re winmodems, they’re good winmodems.
If the modem box doesn’t say “requires Windows”, then you’re looking at a hardware modem.
Well, it’s not a matter of how much CPU power the thing uses, but how. When it sends an interrupt request to the processor, the processor has to drop everything it’s doing and process the modem’s demand. Basically, it makes the whole processor less efficient for whatever it’s doing in addition to having to respond to the modem. Having to do this several dozen times a second can really harm the efficiency of your CPU.
Also, if the CPU is too busy to respond, you’ll lose data, which means it needs to be calculated and resent, further decreasing efficiency (and in some cases, dropping the connection).
Anyway - I assume it’s a given that all external modems are hardware modems?
Last I heard, the ones that hook onto a serial port could safely be assumed to be 100% hardware. USB and other connection types ones aren’t.
And I spent $75 on a USR internal modem a couple years ago (the “Professional Data/Fax” IIRC), at the time I think it was the most expensive single-line internal modem they made. I bought it because the cheap modems were $30, the USR Gaming Modem (an internal hardware modem they used to make) was $80 but it had just been discontinued and I couldn’t find anybody that still had one for sale. I bought this modem because it was at the same price point, so I assumed it was a hardware modem also. It wasn’t, and worked lousy… Part of that probably was the shifty PC I was using back then, but the situation improved a lot when I moved to a USR external serial-port modem. I ended up giving the previous modem away, as the drivers CD wouldn’t install and the shifty computer wouldn’t even detect when the modem was connected. The serial port modem never had a problem running even on the shifty computer–it needs no additional drivers, and you can “force” the com port assignment if the auto-detect doesn’t work.
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