Laptop with fried motherboard modem
 

Have compaq armada 7800 with I think is a fried motherboard dial up modem. Wxp allowed me to disable the recognized but unworking internal modem, and add an external PC card modem which was recognized and worked fine. I deleted the Wxp and installed Libranet 2.8. Also tried live CDs Knoppix, Mepis, Ubuntu, all with same results, i.e. internal modem is recognized and goes through the motions with KPPP, but won't dial. Modem is ready, but won't connect. KPPP querie does not communicate with modem. Enternal PC card is not recognized.

Now the question. How do I tell the Linux distro that the fried internal modem should be disabled and the external PC card modem should be configured? The PC modem is a xircom credit card CEM 56-100. It configures ok by the Linux distros for the ethernet, but I can't get it to dialup. I think I have to somehow get Linux to ignore the internal and look at the PC card for dialup. All gui pursuits failed. Being command line deprived, I need detailed help to fire the fried modem and introduce the credit card. Thanks, Tony

can you shut it off in the bios?

you must have two different devices, e.g. /dev/ttyS0 for internal modem (or /dev/modem) and /dev/ttyS1 for an external (maybe you'll also already have a symlink /dev/modem1 pointing to it)

These devices work of course only if you installed proper drivers. You just may have wrong drivers installed, that's why it doesn't dial.

Need CLI help on accessing what modems my machine recognizes and how to disable internal modem. Where do I find this info, and links to modem. LSMOD shows xircom modem driver, but it is not being used. The modem that worked with WXP is the xircon modem. The internal modem doesn't work and I want to disable it under Libranet 2.8. Thanks. Tony

If the internal modem is a mini pci affair, just remove it from the laptop.