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A strange dial-up issue...

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by luke Jan 23, 2003 last reply Jan 25, 2003

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Hello!

I am having a prblem with one of the computers I use. I have it connecting to the internet through an Earthlink dial-up account, and it is separated from the network. Unfortunately, the dialup connection has been doing some strange things. After dialing up, everything will be fine for several minutes. Then, out of the blue, transfers will simply end. It will not receive of send any data whatsoever. A few minutes later, it will work for another minute or two, and then go back to sending/receiving nothing. This goes on until I disconnect. The amount of time between changes varies, and there does not appear to be a pattern. I would much appreciate any insight as to the possible causes of this.

Most thankfully,
Luke

13 replies

by m.a.s. matrix Jan 23, 2003

First thing i would check is to make sure that you have the right/updated drivers...if this does not fix it try a different phone cord/jack. if you still have problems, see if you can borrow/purchase another modem in case the one you have is going bad.

what i did above is explain the least expensive ways to troubleshoot a modem to the most expensive. if the above does not do it for you then you might consider haveing the local phone company test your lines.

good luck!!

by luke Jan 25, 2003

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by chitosunday Jan 23, 2003

Check if there is too many things connected in your phone like phone extensions. Remove some of them. Too many extension also makes a lot of noise which distort the signal in your unit.

by luke Jan 25, 2003

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by jkaras Jan 23, 2003

How long is your phone cord? Longer than 15 feet? You might be experiencing attenuation ( loss of signal over too long a distance) Using any splitters? Remove them. Might want to try using init string in the modem, a good site for them is www.modemhelp.net. Also site www.speedguide.net is a great site for patches to improve performance. Call phone company and have a line check, and call provider for dns no#s or alt dialup no#. Lastly drivers reloaded and even swapp out modem for another to compare performance to narrow down troubleshooting.

by luke Jan 25, 2003

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by guruofdos Jan 24, 2003

I would suggest that you disable programs running in the background, and then possibly change your CPU or memory. A modem will either work or not! If the line is noisy you will connect at a slower speed but bursts of data, followed by no transfers, then more bursts at intervals of between 30 seconds or so sounds like processor loading or the machine paging data to the hard disk because of insufficient ram for Windows.

Run System Monitor and look at disk cache performance, on and off line andand Page Fault Errors.....during the periods when the modem is quiet, if the Page faults start increasing when the system appears idle, you have a faulty processor...AMD K6's with sluggish fans are prone to this fault. Sometimes replacing the fan with a better one helps, but often the CPU has been overheated. If you are just dialling up and browsing and there is no other background program running, yet the CPU load is peaking at 80 or 90% during modem quiet time, then suspect a cooked chip!

by luke Jan 25, 2003

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by csmith Jan 25, 2003

This is an Earthlink problem.
The problem is congestion caused by interactions between their load balancing software and the routers/swithches.
As a test, connect to another ISP, and the "problem" will "vanish".
It's not a problem on your end.
Don't troubleshoot the MODEM or the PC, there is nothing wrong with them.
Regards, Chris