(I’m going to see how long Manny will let this last here. If you decide to blow it away, Manny, please just shut it down rather than move it to MPSIMS (it’s already there).)
Folks, I’ve got a computer issue so @#$#!&@ annoying, it even drove me to post in MPSIMS. It must be driving me nuts.
When I’m disconnected by my ISP, and when I disconnect voluntarily, my telephone rings. When I pick it up, I hear modem line noise, as though my modem hasn’t dropped the connection. I immediately hang up, and all is well. But if I don’t pick up the receiver and put it back down, it’ll ring indefinitely.
It doesn’t happen on my other box (the dinosaur), so I know (well, I think)it’s not my lines or my ISP.
The machine is a Dell PIII 450, with 256mb RAM, running Win98SE, and an internal USR 56k Winmodem (v.90).
I don’t think it’s a driver issue either, as I cannot find any more recent software than what I have (and as an aside, I friggin hate winmodems anyway, but that’s neither here nor there).
Thanks to Singledad, Bobort, and Katt, I’ve figured out that it’s not a call waiting issue (I don’t have it), and it’s probably not a phone company issue, since it’s been going on for a while and doesn’t do it on my other modem.
Well, this is little more than a feeble guess. But since it’s clear that the line has not actually been hung up (you don’t hear a dialtone when you pick up), and since it’s therefore clear that no ring signal is really being sent to your phone, I’d have to say it’s the telephone that’s screwy. Or perhaps the particular modem/phone combo you have.
Perhaps what happens is that when line conditions worsen, your WinModem and the ISP modem desprately try to re-negotiate the connection, and your modem erroneously reports to your OS that the line has been dropped. The mad re-negotiation attempts by your modem are mistakenly interpreted by your phone as a ring signal, and the phone rings.
Such a problem would only show up when you have a modem that does some odd things (unusual or unusually loud re-negotiation signals) AND when you have a phone that does some odd things (like confusing a line signal with a ring signal), too. So the problem would be pretty rare, and it would be hard to reproduce; change either the modem (for example, by using the one in your old computer instead) or the phone, and the problem vanishes.
Like I said, it’s just a guess. In any case, one solution would be to unplug the phone when you’re on the internet. That would prevent you (or someone else) from accidentally picking up the phone and interfering with the connection, it would certainly prevent the phone from ringing, and it might even improve your connection - my connection speeds up (from 44k to 48k) and becomes more stable when I unplug my phone.
In fact, I’m sick of unplugging my phone to log on to the internet - does anyone know if Radio Shack makes a phone-line kill switch I could get, so I could just press a button to disconnect the phone?
I will provide a six-pack of beer (or equivalent value in another beverage) to the first person who can solve this. . . in a manner which does NOT require me to replace my modem.
(mutter mutter mutter dang logical Swiss mutter)
Andros,
Since you reject Arnold’s obvious solution, we may need to get “creative”.
1: shot-in-the-dark)
Turn off the audible feebdack from your modem. See whether problem disappears.
2: actual information gathering in case shot in the dark misses)
Drill down into to your modem configuration and post your connection settings, parity settings, etc. Compare to other modem. Compare to default settings.
3: Scrap window and install an OS that lets you address modems with tty controls.
4: Send me a six-pack even though I failed to solve your problem just because you are such a nice guy.
in your original post. Given that it happens every time the modem drops the line, and that all the phones in your house ring, I’d have to agree with the others who have said “get a new modem.” Sorry.
WinModem type devices are often flaky, in my experience, probably partly because they use software to do processing that other modems do in hardware. That means the very low quality standards of the software biz work their way into devices that we users tend to think of as hardware - like your modem. You might be better off in other ways with a real modem anyhow.
