Well if anyone has noticed (I doubt it), I have been gone for the past month. Not by choice. We has a tornado come through this area (Southeast MO) about a month ago, and with it went my internet service. This has happened before.... I have been through 5, count them, five U.S. Robotics internal 56k modems in 2 1/2 years.
Well I called the phone company and had them send a guy out to check my line becasue my modem was unplugged from the jack at the time of the storm. This guy turns out to be a man in his late 50's with a laptop from the early 90's or so. He said everything was fine and he connnected to his SWB server fine.
So I take a trip to the local Wal-Mart. A new big one was just built over the old agingone here so they had tons of modems and stuff in stock. I got one, went home, installed it in the slot where my old, yet same model USR 56k modem lied.
And it came up with hte same problem: When the modem tried to dial out, it would just 'dim' the dialtone and not get through to the routing box.
So I was mad.
I couldn't figure out why the SWB guy's old laptop worked and not my new USR modem did not. There was only one thing I could think of: since he was connecting to a SWB data server and I was trying to connect to an ISP... he must have been using a diffrent (older) protocol to dial in.
So in a stroke of GENUIS I decide to try to use a Fax program to manually dial into my ISP.
And lo and behold the slow dialing in worked.
So I start thinking that it is just a circuit in the routing box (5 miles down hte street) that isnt handling the dialing of my 56k connection.
I get to looking in my network options and start chaing protcols, dialing procedures, until I try someonething SO STUPID that it was BOUND TO WORK. and it did.
I changed the modem over from TONE dialing to PULSE dialing.
And here I am.
I am glad to be back.
And tommorow the phone company gets a call. I feel like I am at my grandma's house using a rotary phone when i connect now.
PS- any phone / SWB techs on the boards? I think it would drive my point home the the SWB operator if I could tell him the exact name of hte problem (like the name of the board that handles 56k connections in routing boxes....)
Well I called the phone company and had them send a guy out to check my line becasue my modem was unplugged from the jack at the time of the storm. This guy turns out to be a man in his late 50's with a laptop from the early 90's or so. He said everything was fine and he connnected to his SWB server fine.
So I take a trip to the local Wal-Mart. A new big one was just built over the old agingone here so they had tons of modems and stuff in stock. I got one, went home, installed it in the slot where my old, yet same model USR 56k modem lied.
And it came up with hte same problem: When the modem tried to dial out, it would just 'dim' the dialtone and not get through to the routing box.
So I was mad.
I couldn't figure out why the SWB guy's old laptop worked and not my new USR modem did not. There was only one thing I could think of: since he was connecting to a SWB data server and I was trying to connect to an ISP... he must have been using a diffrent (older) protocol to dial in.
So in a stroke of GENUIS I decide to try to use a Fax program to manually dial into my ISP.
And lo and behold the slow dialing in worked.
So I start thinking that it is just a circuit in the routing box (5 miles down hte street) that isnt handling the dialing of my 56k connection.
I get to looking in my network options and start chaing protcols, dialing procedures, until I try someonething SO STUPID that it was BOUND TO WORK. and it did.
I changed the modem over from TONE dialing to PULSE dialing.
And here I am.
I am glad to be back.
And tommorow the phone company gets a call. I feel like I am at my grandma's house using a rotary phone when i connect now.
PS- any phone / SWB techs on the boards? I think it would drive my point home the the SWB operator if I could tell him the exact name of hte problem (like the name of the board that handles 56k connections in routing boxes....)
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