The guiding rule for modems is: no soft modems, no USB modems.

If you want ease of setup, use externals since they will at least work
without a driver.

I have found some of the cheap internals using rockwell chipset to be
excellent at a fraction of the cost of the USR's. Whats more they tend to
support good TAPI functionality including DTMF recognition, speech etc.

- Tim


"Rivergoat" wrote in message
...
I saw this with an A7V600, and the same with my new A7N8x-E deluxe...

Tried a Creative modem blaster I had at work (new). I have only dial
up at home, so I need a modem (rural area, no DSL...can't afford
satellite DSL equipment).

While the Creative worked in older machines, it never worked in the
A7V600, and only was able to dial out once on the A7N8X-E.

The modem would respond to queries just fine, no apparent IRQ or COM
conflicts (it defaulted to COM3, though I tried other COM ports, too).
Modem would simply never grab a dial tone upon dial out (except one
time only, and there really were no changes I made that should have
made that difference).

Having found a U.S. Robotics 56K external at work, I tried it. Works
perfectly every tiime. I even flashed its ROM with V.92 upgrades and
newest drivers from USR. as I say, works like a charm. Will continue
to use it, but very curious why the PCIs won't work. Have also talked
to someone at work who can't get a PCI modem to work either, although
besides running WinXP I don't know his configuration. I'm running
Win2K Pro, BTW.

TIA