PPP /w Conexant Modem
 

Hi, me again :) First off I want to say I'm sorry for even mentioning the word Conexant...seems to be forbidden in some circles :) but fortunately it might not be the problem. Here's the story.

I have a Zoom PCI Faxmodem and I found that it was a Conexant Modem. I downloaded the necessary drivers for my kernel and they seem to work great. Minicom detected it fine and I've been able to use KPPP to dial to my ISP. The problem is that the PPP seems unstable. If I connect via the MCC Wizard then I can surf the net, etc, but only the first time I connect. I can also connect via KPPP by itself. The problem is when I do connect, it is successful but I can't browse or anything else, the KPPP graph shows a spike as I connect then it flatlines and stays there.

I don't think this is a modem issue because it seems to preform just fine, it may be an ISP issue and I'm currently looking into getting more information about dialing to them.

If you guys know what might be going on, I'd really appreciate some advice, and I apologize in advance for my supreme n00bness :)

If you have any questions, or I sucked at explaining something, let me know and I'll clarify. Thanks

Do pages give you an unknown host error, like my system does? I think that's to do with setting a DNS server.

Try wvdial, it's been suggested as a more stable dialer instead of kppp, for us with Conexant modems. :)

Answer!
 

I think I've found the problem.
When I installed Mandrake I was on a LAN, and had to setup my Network to use the LAN for internet access. After trial and error, and a few helpful "ping" responses, I discovered that even though I set Modem as default internet access it was STILL trying to search the Gateway (router) I had specified for the LAN internet access. All I had to do was disable my ethernet card from starting on boot, and I've successfully dialed in 3 times now. :)
Thanks for the help guys, hope this is useful to someone later on.

I also had this problem since mandrake 8.2. I believe that it was fine if I took the eth0 down, but I never did figure out why. I started to look into it, but a week later I went to cablemodem. All ethernet network makes it easy. I believe it has either something to do with the iptables, or something like that. I did also get ppp0 to come up successfully with netconf. But that is a pain if you just want a quick dial in.

Sorry couldn't be more help, but at least you know that your still sane,

Cheers,
Pete

ppp option:
defaultroute #adds ISP's gateway to route table on connect
usepeerdns #ask for and use ISPs DNS server(s) on connect

Can go in the options file for ppp (/etc/ppp/options) or as an option in kppp: Account Setup - Edit - "Customize pppd Arguments..." button.