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| AD5GB Tl Posts: 5 USA | Posted - 12/1/2006 10:57:33 PM    Ok... I give up! Someone smarter than me needs to tell me why I can connect via the same cable to the same wall jack with my ThinkPad R40 ( Agere AC'97 ) at speeds between 42K and 46K but with my main UNIX workstation ( External modems of V.90 and V.92 varieties of Lucent, Conexant, Rockwell and Agere persuasions.... too dang many to count actually! ) 26,400 is it. PEROID. Ridiculous! If broadband were even available where I am, I would have never even subscribed to this site. Hoping to find firmware, I did..... but finding that there is none for hardware modems (only after I subscribed did I make this discovery!!!!) I'm wondering who has the key to external serial modems? Someone must know how to unlock these things. My lowly IBM thinkpad does it time and time again!
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| v.Richard Tl Posts: 6222 USA | Posted - 12/8/2006 5:46:27 AM  1) Make sure you port speed to the modem is 57.6k or higher (115.2k better) 2) Check/post here the post-call diagnostics from the modem for better diagnosis 3) The ability of modem firmware to identify and compensate for line conditions will vary - the Agere softmodem (AC'97) is still current/being tweaked & developed while many of the hardware-controller based modems are not being enhanced. 4) Try the external modem with everything else unplugged from phone line or direct to the demarc - other devices plugged into phone line might cause impairment Aloha! Richard. |
| AD5GB Tl Posts: 5 USA | Posted - 12/8/2006 6:04:37 AM I get the best results at 115,200. The UARTs on my mainboard as well as Sun's serial port drivers support speeds of 230,400 and 460,800 but the modems don't behave well at these speeds. Diagnostics haven't revealed anything significant. I've been down the road of unplugging everything, tried plugging directly into the demarc, tried shorter/better/different serial and telephone cables, played the "musical modem" game, tried every possible init setting and ...... 26,400. Well, until I flashed my Zoom 2949L with the 3049L firmware. I will occasionally get above that but it isn't long before it re-trains to 26,400 or 24,000. Zoom has been the absolute worst at getting help. No firmware is available, no support is being done anymore on the 2949L but they won't make the hardware programmer's API docs available so I could try to take a whack at writing my own. (I've written Agere and Conexant to see if they would provide the docs) The Hayes Accura V.92 they will support but there's no newer firmware. It's ancient on all of them. If I could use a softmodem I'd try the Agere SV92PP based ones. The one in my Thinkpad ALWAYS does nearly 2x as good as any of my serial doorstops. Ok... (end rant) I appreciate the tips. I was hoping there'd be some 'alpha' or 'beta' firmware somewhere to play with. Happy Holidays -- |
| AD5GB Tl Posts: 5 USA | Posted - 12/12/2006 6:41:49 PM Update..... decided to gamble one last time and ordered a new USR V.92 external modem (5686E) since they were the only modem vendor I could find that had fairly current firmware listed on their website. (dated just a few months old) If I didn't require the stability, reliability and scalability of a UNIX operating system I'd definitely run one of the Agere Winmodems.... but I just can't do Windows with all the other things I do with the computer. Anyway..... out of the box the USR connected first time at 38K with it's 2yr old firmware. I'm downloading the latest upgrade and will see what that does, but this is 12-14K faster than my Zoom, Hayes, ActionTec and Best Data pieces of crap have ever done. It seems to have up-shifted too. For those of you who require UNIX stability and power and are stuck with no broadband availability, this might be a possibility for you... especially if you've had to endure the horribly slow connectivity, and less-than-abysmal customer support that I have from Zoom/Hayes, ActionTec and Best Data. USR's pre-sales support was encouraging. At least it seems like they still have a bit of a clue who a customer is and what customer support means. Unlike the other vendors previously mentioned. <<END RANT>> Happy Holidays! -- |
| v.Richard Tl Posts: 6222 USA | Posted - 12/13/2006 8:22:42 AM Now that you have a USR, you can also look at / post the post-call diagnostics which should give indication of what line impairments prevent higher speeds (especially the aty11) see www.modemsite.com/56k/diag3com.asp I would suggest that a 38k is a very bad rate for a 56k modem, and you might get better throughput with a V.34-limited (33.6k max) connection. Aloha! Richard. |
| AD5GB Tl Posts: 5 USA | Posted - 12/13/2006 6:21:51 PM Hi Richard ( and everyone else ), And Happy Holidays! I agree.... 38K IS a horrible rate for a 56K modem. What can I do about any "line impairments"? I'm really stuck out here in the country with no DSL or Cable Modem/TV service available. I could get ISDN but can't find an ISP that can provide connectivity. There is one close enough but they say they can't do it because they're not my dial tone provider and they can't provide my dial tone service because they don't have circuits out here. The throughput numbers are quite good though compared to the other modems. Still not quite what that Agere soft modem that's in my work laptop will do, and I am still fooling with the USR's init to try to find it's optimum setting. It is far faster than the Zoom or Hayes at either V.34 or V.90. Is there any info on the modemsite that gives comprehensive chipset coverage (AT values, S registers etc) for this USR V.92 chipset. So far I haven't been able to locate one that is current. Kind regards (and thanks a bunch!) -- |
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