TIA

You probably got the CD with the Modem. I purchased the card only from Mwave.com and had no drivers. I had thought that I'd be able to get the proper drivers from US Robotics, but they were less than helpful, and at least two of the technical support representatives I spoke to on the phone had never heard of the 3CP5610a , just the 3CP5610, a Winmodem from the past.

One representative went so far as to speculate that "maybe" they had simply taken the 3Com Gaming Modem features and a hardware controller & added it to the 5610 to create the 5610A. Damn, what a genius.

The Windows Me driver for the 5610A has non-functional diagnostics, and has sometimes caused BSODs for me. Luckily, I found an NT 4.0 driver for the 5610A on the USR Web Site (Apparently they are oblivious to the existence of Windows 9x) which works well with Windows Millennium. It's still missing the Gaming Mode feature, however, which I doubt US Robotics will ever fix. Hell, half of them don't even know that their brand new modem, the Performance Pro, even exists!

To install the NT 4.0 driver:

In the Device Manager, double click on the USR 56K Modem.

Click the Driver Tab, then click Update Driver.

Click 'Specify Location of the Driver'.

Click 'List Drivers for all Hardware Devices' or its equivalent. Click 'Modems', 'Next', 'Have Disk'.

Unzip the driver to a folder and specify that as the Disk Location.

Click 'Show All Hardware'.

Select the Modem.

Click Next, and click 'Yes' to use the Driver.

After explaining my problem to the young man on the telephone, we discussed the things I had tried and as a last suggestion he asked me how many telephone lines we had and how many telephones we had connected to it. He further said what he was about to say would probably sound ridiculous, but that it had worked for another person. That suggestion was: If the line your modem is connected to has telephones plugged into it too, disconnect every telephone in your house by just unplugging the phone jack then attempt to connect. I told him at this point I was willing to try anything since I had already returned the modem and acquired another one at the suggestion of the store where purchased. So, tonight I tried it. First, with the phones plugged in. Pure static. Then, with the phones unplugged. Instant connection.
He said if you do connect with no problems, you know it is a telephone, not the line or the modem.

The internet provider explained that lightning had affected the other person and even though we may pay big money for portable phones, the chips they use are pretty cheap and can't handle a nearby strike. And, if any phones had a minor chip problem, being connected to the same phone line the modem is connected to would affect the connection.

Remove/reinstall modem in different PCI slot;
Check System->Devices for conflicts;
Try assigning different resources to the PCI enumerator for the modem.

1) Tried to use the NT driver; no change.

2) Tried re-installing the modem to all 3 of my available PCI slots; no change.

3) Purchased and installed a Lucent-based winmodem (ActionTec). The performance isn't as good as the USR, BUT, it hasn't given me any static...yet; jury is still out.

Susie, I have not tried that phoneline disconnect thing. At this point, I think I'll wait to see if/when USR updates their drivers for ME. Through a MS hardware newgroup, I've heard that USR engineers are currently working on updating their drivers for ME. If that happens, maybe I'll swap out modems again and try to make the USR work. Like I've said, when the thing works, nothing can touch its performance.