USR modem picks up on phone calls

[sfarley]

I have a USR 56k sportster modem. I has worked fine for a year with no problems. Recently, however, it has started picking up any time I get a phone call. I have Rapid com voice, but it is not running. Any time the phone rings once, it picks up and sounds like it is trying to receive a fax. Any ideas? I hate having to turn off the computer so we can receive calls.

[DavidX]

It sounds as though your comms program (Rapid com voice) may be running without you realising it. Open your program and look carefully at the options/preferences section. There may be something like "Start automatically with Windows" which has been inadvertently checked. If so, uncheck it.

Also look in the StartUp folder to see if there is an entry for your comms program, and perhaps in Win.ini to see if there is anything after the Load= command.

[philipg]

There are only 3 possible causes of this that I can think of.
1.) In your Bios there maybe an option in the power management area that says something like "power on modem" or "monitor modem". Mine did the same thing after installing Winfax it changed this setting, I had to change it back myself.

2.) Check for a virus - A virus may turn this feature on to try and infect other computers.

3.) Think about the programs you may have installed lately like Mediaring Talk 99 auto answers the phone line.

Try these and good luck.

[TGuelker]

You probably have auto-answer turned on. Is this an internal or external modem? My older Courier external modems had DIP switches which allowed me to turn on auto-answer.
Try this : load Hyperterminal and type this exactly in UPPER CASE without the quotes "ATSOW" That's a ZERO, not a letter O.