My first experience.......modem problem

Hey guys,

Got a problem with a Windows 2000 machine dropped off at my house.

First, I have NEVER used Windows 2000 before......sooooooo, I'm green, very green. Customer said modem did not work......I hooked up to his online connection after several restarts. Downloaded critical updates and SP4.

Now, when I go to connect, the thing restarts when it wants to dial. Contstantly getting and error saying some files were replaced by unrecognizeable files and I need the cd. Did you think the guy brought it with him before he went to New York?

No

So.......I gets this idea to put Norton's System Works 2003 on...to maybe help me out with file problems. Says it wants to access the hard drive which is not supported and if you do it anyway, your program will not work properly. This NT thingy must be a whole different animal. I hate compaqs (and you can imagine my shagrin when I came home to find it in my office.....ugh!) and this is a compaq 5726.

Needless to say I totally do not understand the control issue and my not being aloud to access certain things. I couldn't even find out how to uninstall McAfee, take programs out of start up...etc.

Can somebody help me out here with why the thing keeps restarting as soon as it tries to dial? What is up with the control issue? Do I need to change settings to allow myself to do/make changes to it? Guess I need a class........

Thanks,
Sharon

http://www.onecomputerguy.com/window...s.htm#msconfig

Add MSconfig with that link above. :D


About the modem,
First:
I am assuming you have checked the modem properties. It should be in the control panel, (start, control panel, Modems) not really sure as I haven't used 2K in about 1 year, anyway, if I remember correctly, there is a setting to have it redial when the line drops. That could be the issue here. It could be dropping, then redialing as soon as it drops. You could try shutting that feature off.. and see if the modem is disconnecting at random.

Second:
Have you tried uninstalling and then reinstalling the modem in the hardware device list? I would give that a go. Uninstall the modem, and the restart. After restarting the hardware wizard should detect that the modem is installed and should start installing the driver for it.

If possible, could you locate an updated driver for the modem? Since it is a compaq machine, I'd suggest looking on the compaq website, which is now meshed with HP,
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/

Third:
Have you tried switching in another modem to see if it works? It could be that indeed, the modem is shot.

If you have a lot of modem issues, it may be a good idea to go out and pick up a cheap, but reliable modem, so you can just switch them out, and find out very quickly if the modem is shot.

That would be the path I would follow when troubleshooting a modem issue.

Last thing, is this OS native to this PC? In other words, has the customer updated the OS or is this an OEM operating system?

To make changes to the system, you need to have the adminstrator's password and user name. You can get that from the customer. Without adminstrator priviledges, you cannot make system changes to that PC. In fact you are seriously limited in what you can and cannot do, depending on the account type.

:D

One more bit of advice about the redialing modem:

http://support.earthlink.net/mu/1/ps.../1251.psc.html

That is support from earthlink. Often times it is the simplest solutions that we think of last. :D

Quote:

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Originally posted by Big Booger
Often times it is the simplest solutions that we think of last. :D

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Yep, get cable or better.:D j/k

Thor,
You are a riot.