Desktop

The first places to look are for IRQ or Com port conflicts. If you have anything on IRQ 5 or on Com 3 OR Com 1 you'll have trouble. Check to make sure under your system devices in Control Panels. Look for IRQ and memory address conflicts/errors.

Also, you may need to disable Com 1 in your BIOS. I've seen this cause quite a few problems with modems....

If everything looks good there, try removing the modem and software and going through the install again. If it gives you the same issues, try manually setting the Com Port and Interrupt to ones you know are available.

Good luck...hope this helps.

First up, are you able to install the modem on another machine? You said it is a PCI modem, so try another PCI slot, unless you already have. If it can't be installed on another Win 98SE machine, look no further.
Check out http://www.modemsite.comyou may find an answer there too.
Check also to make sure you used the correct driver. You probably have, but it wouldn't be the first time the "correct" driver has brought a system to its knees.

PCI devices most of the time get IRQ and COM ports assigned automaticaly by its own software, I suggest you to go to http://www.usr.com/support/s-main-menu.asp
www.driverguide.com, www.modem-driver.com and download the latest driver for this device, remove the one already installed and give it a try.
If no luck please e-mail me back
@lberto
alberto@wirelesscuracao.com

If none of the above help you are dealing with hardware failure.

Try to take the modem and change it with the outlets that you bought from, cause it is still new and malfucntioning.

Good day.

Run MSINFO32.EXE and expand the Hardware Resources section. All info is there about what resources the system devices are using. Although some devices share resources some can cause problems. So whatever's the same as the modem is causing this. The sound card is usually on IRQ 5 this may be a place to start. Also you can see if there are available IRQs that the modem may be able to use.

By default the COM ports use the following settings.

COM1,3E8, COM3,2E8 both use IRQ4
COM2,2F8, COM4,3F8 both use IRQ3

As was correctly stated, to free up resources, disable one or both of the com ports from the BIOS. Since the modem's COM3 you would disable COM1. If the modem was COM4 you would disable COM2.

Before modems had jumpers that were used to hard set the port, IRQ and I/O address. If a port was disabled in the BIOS you could jump the modem to use those resources and for sure it would work.

Welcome to plug and pray! The PCI bus will assign devices to use the same resources. Windows sometimes cannot handle this. There won't be any noted conflicts but the system could have all sorts of problems.

Check through your PCI settings in the BIOS. If you're lucky it will allow you to specify slot settings.

Moving the card to another slot is also a way to eliminate this issue.

USR modems can be a bit tough, so take the time to read the help files on the CD.