Hi there,

I have just installed SuSe 7.3 pro on my PC and have my first problem..I bought a new external modem (all hardware) which is plugged in via serial port on COM 1. I installed it manually and sucessfully in SuSe and tested it in YAST and it responds perfectly well to tests (AT etc). However when I run wvdial (my ISP is set up correctly) I hear my modem dialling the number but then I just get a message saying BUSY. I get a few more lines of dialog but then it just says BAD COMMAND or something and stops. I have checked my phone line and there is no problem. Any suggestions?

Oh, there might be one more relevant piece of information...I installed it perfectly well in Windoze (xp) too, tested it, everything fine until I try to connect to ISP and it says "THE PHONE LINE IS BUSY"....don't really care if it doesnt work for WIN but why is the same problem happening in both? I cant find any reason for the WIN problem at all...

Many thanks for all the help you are going to give me!

Andre

IF you get that error that means that all the connections on that number are full. It's nothing on your side, you'll just have to dial in when there's less people on. If you dial the ISP's phone number on your phone do you get modem noise or do you get a busy signal. If it's a busy signal, I suggest maybe finding another ISP that you can actually dial in to.

There are connections available - I tried my notebook next to the pc and connected to the isp first time every time after each test on my pc. Could it just be broken hardware? Think i'll bring the modem back and get another one. Thanks for the help.

wow, that's wierd. I did have a similar problem last summer, my modem must have fallen victim to a lightning strike, Windows could still recgonize the device and even use it to dial in but I would always get busy signals... so I would just take the thing back and get another if I was you, it could be hardware.

Yep - changed it for a US Robotics and it worked first time. Thats what I get for buying German hardware. Thanks for the help Justice.

I'm not saying there wasn't a hardware problem, but for post mortem purposes, could you not have been lucky connecting your notebook and your ISP not just have added another server when you went back to the shop?

Surely if the modem dials and sends the ATZ request to the server and the server responds that it's busy, it's not a hardware problem?

I just don't get it that's all. Can anyone explain?

Thanks

Bert

I don't necessairly understand what your saying, because my Compaq box came with a Lucent 56k PCI winmodem, which must have gotten zapped with lightning or static electricity, but it doesn't really matter what happened to it, it was not working properly, it would send the ATZ signal to the ISP which would in turn respond with a line is busy command. I tried this modem in three or four different boxes just to make sure that the PCI slots on my motherboard weren't fried, and needless to say with a differnet ISP and the same modem I got the same result. I don't have any real explanation for it because I am neither a hardware engineer nor a driver programmer, so I don't know too much about how the modem sends signals and recieves them from an ISP, but I do know how to tell when there's a bad peice of hardware in my box. Another thing that did work for me with a different modem was switching the PCI slot the modem was in, and reconfiguring it...Windows had a terrible problem with recgonizing the Comm 1 port for some reason...

I have a Lucent PCI WinModem too, on my laptop. An old version of the ltmodem driver (ltmodem-5.78f) is the only one that works in Linux, and even then it's prone to *completely freeze* the system when I try to use it.

Anyway hardware engineers don't usually ask why something didn't work, unless they have to!

Bert

Hmm... I have a Zoom 56k PCI Winmodem with a Lucent Chipset (not sure what Lucent chipset exactally) , but the 6.00b15 driver for kernel 2.4.7-10 works rather well, I haven't had any problems with lockups or system hangs...

Hardware is mysterious and not well understood, least of all by the people who make it and service it. Maybe the Feng Shui is better in your home.



Bert

As I could understand, problem is that modem is waiting for dial tone.
You should check in your telecom company are they suport it (US companies does in europe not).
You can always turn off this feature adding X3 to init string.

in windoze you should search the modem icon in control panel, them find modem properties and find option "wait for dial tone". uncheck this option...

I'm from Bosnia and Herzegowina and we always do it. Other way we would not be able to use Internet at all!!!