Help! Modem keeps jamming and disconnecting me

[smoo22]

Help! Since we moved, I have had to use my laptop for the internet, and the modem keeps hanging up on me (it's a dial-up connection). That in itself is not the main problem, though it's a pain - the worst thing is that it seems to jam - says it is disconnecting but never actually seems to finish doing so; when I check the phone, it HAS hung up, but I cannot reconnect because it still thinks it's busy disconnecting - if you follow me...

I have to shut the thing down completely, which means I lose everything I'm in the middle of - it won't just restart because it is waiting to disconnect and if I put it to "sleep" it is still "disconnecting" when I wake it again!

I use an Apple Mac G3 ibook and it's an Apple v.92 modem - never had any problems before, though admittedly I didn't use it for internet all that often so might just have been lucky.

I wondered if it might be my new phone exchange - it is very outdated (only 5 numbers in our phone number, don't get most of the BT services etc) so I wondered if this might be part of the problem?

It doesn't happen all the time, sometimes it disconnects OK (normally screws up 3 or 4 times out of about 10 disconnections a day!!) - it only likes to do it when I'm on something important, or long, that I haven't yet saved!!

Anyone have any suggestions as to what to do? Pl-ee-ee-ease, it's driving me mad!!

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

[sp54]

I'm sorry I can't help,smoo, but ours does exactly the same sort of thing :badmood: :banghead: e are also on dial up, but today our broadband connection stuff arrived :D :thumbs: I hope that resolves the prob when I get it set up on my laptop my children have bought me for Christmas.

I am a technophobe, but there are some very clued up IT peeps on here :P :rolleyes: who have often helped me. Good luck!!

[Knightley]

My mum has similar problems when she contacted her ISP they said it could be her phone lines (they are old) thats been with dial up and broadband, also sometimes reinstalling your internet software helps,hope that helps.

[alicks]

On mine at home, I have an auto-disconnect bit in the internet explorer properties. My broadband was doing the same as yours seems to be, but once I told it to never auto-disconnect (touch wood!) it seems to have stopped doing it. I have v6 at work and I can't find the option, and I think mine at home is v7, but it might be worth a quick glance in the properties! (sorry, pretty useless with computers myself!!)

[sonicpainter]

hi smoo sounds like your modem is timing out iam not such a expert on macs but if you can remove and re-install or better still get a updated modem driver because if you can get on the net with it for a period of time than its not usually an connection problem to your isp

if you can uninstall the driver then re-install that will hopefully fix things also check that your network settings are correct switch off any network cards and always use dial up only

[smoo22]

Wow, thanks for all your suggestions on this!

Sonic - I'm sorry I dont understand most of the techy stuff like network cards (don't even know if I have one). I'm sure it's noting to do with my ISP either, it does actually disconnect fine, but the b***** modem refuses to believe that it's done it! And I wouldn't know where to find a modem driver or where to install it unless it came on a CD-rom As I don't have the original disks (bought machine 2nd-hand) I think that might be impossible, but thanks for the ideas.

I don't really use IE, I prefer Safari, ocassionally Opera, though it doesn't seem to be the browser that's the problem (they have their own little crashes from time to time like most programs!)- my bugbear is simply the modem / connection.
It can't be a time-out thing because it does it in the middle of everything - I thought timing out was when it was inactive (like you hadn't clicked anything for a while) - am I wrong here, I'm not really sure?

Knightley - I think you might be the closet to solving my strange mystery here - simply because I see you are not all that far away from me, so it might indeed be old lines - hmph! I will just have to learn to save everything every 30 seconds!

I like that explanation anyway - it means it's not just me being stupid!! Unless anyone else knows better of course! :bigeyes:

[Doktor Jon]

Hi smoo,

I've a similar problem to you, only my Mac Cube is totally possessed and tends to do what it wants, when I least want it to....

It's two favourite tricks are turning off the broadband connection and going over to the dial up modem (which of course is not connected); that and quitting my web design program, between 3 and 30 seconds BEFORE I'm about to save the work :banghead: :angry:

If you haven't already tried quitting the locked up program, there are three things you can try before resorting to restarting.

1) Hold down the Command (Apple) key and 'Q' at the same time (never works for me).

2) Hold down the Command (Apple) key and full stop key to force a quit request (if it works click on Cancel)

3) Hold down the Option (alt), Command (Apple) and Escape (esc) keys all at the same time (that generally works 70% of the time).

Hope that helps; if I find anything else that might be useful, I'll let you know.

regards

D.J.

[smoo22]

Thanks Doktor Jon

Your problems sound even more frustrating than mine!
Unfortunately I've already tried all the things you suggest - I can close the programs, including Internet Connect, but the modem refuses to know. Maybe it's just a weird thing about Macs, I think I'll just have to live with it - will let you know if I invent any new swear words in the process... :D

If I discover anything new to try, will let you know!
Cheers,

[sonicpainter]

hi smoo try changing your baud speed of your modem to maybe a lower value this will be in the properties of the modem

cheers sonicpainter

[change for the best]

Having a five digit number doesn't mean the exchange is old/out of date however if you live in a rural location you may well be connected to an AXE10 exchange rather than a SYS-X or SYS-Y exchange. There is no great difference except that some additional services can't be provided on them. One consideration is the distance between your house and the exchange there may be a loss in signal that you won't notice on a voice call but the modem does.

Another is that you may be connected to the exchange using a piece of equipement which can alter a signal to allow two transmissions down one line. This can occasionaly cause a slow down of the connection speed.

You should be able to locate a software driver for your modem at the manufacturers web-site. It's probably better to use the intended driver than one Windows provides - That may well solve the problem.

Another would be broadband - dial up is soooooooo slooooooooow