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Error 633 opening modem on COM3

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7 replies

by ronschmidt

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We purchased a TOSHIBA Satellite M30 laptop running XP PROFESSIONAL a month ago and a person here was using it with the integral modem to access AOL. I worked fine for the last month but today when she exited AOL and it did its infamous updates. Now suddenly when the modem is accessed by either AOL or a dial-up adapter the message
"error 633 modem is already in use" appears and will not dial out. I cannot identify any applications or services running that would have hold of the modem. It is configured on COM3 but I changed it to other COM ports and still get the same results. Could the modem have gone out or did AOL cause a problem? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much in advance.

7 replies

by otl

What seems to always work is delete the modem in control panel -> system -> device manager. Reboot and let the operating system refind it and load the appropriate drives. If this does not work the Modem may have left the system permanently(happened to me once).

System may have locked on the modem being in use and will not allow any other users, possible AOL caused a change in the driver and the system does not like the change.

by rcom

Run the AOL diagnostics and select repair. Or if you go into networking and delete the dialup adapters the same is done. The next time you open AOL it will rebuild everything.

by jkaras

AOL almost always is the culprit. They attempt to overwrite windows protected files as well as append itself to the TCP/IP protocol so other internet providers fail keeping you faithful to AOL. Only update AOL if absolutely necessary since their updates are only advertisements and more control software. WHat you can do prior to uninstall/reinstall modem is do a CRT+ALT+DEL to bring up task mgr and go to applications. View the list and if there is RNAAPP running in the backround, end task it reboot then recheck if RNAAPP is still running. If not attempt to connect.
Look into device mgr to see if there is any ghost modems and remove the imposter or remove them both but record what they are and verify any driver software for the correct modem before removing to avoid any headaches.

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