Modem dials even when computer is off!

[cobrien99]

My fiance's brother was using his computer during a storm (they said there wasn't any lightning) but the power went out. Ever since then the modem if it is plugged into the jack w/ or w/o power it still tries to dial some number. Windows recognizes it's there but there is an error communicating with it. My feelings are that it is toast... Any ideas? I had him pull it out and put it in another slot just in case, but nothing.

Thanks,
Chris

[Dominus]

May seem drastic, but have you tried a re-install of windows? That's fixed a lot of kooky modem problems that I've had.

On another note, I had a phone once that started playing Beethoven using the number tones when lightning stuck the telephone pole. It was really freaky; I was playing Q1 on my comp at 2AM, and the power goes out, and all of a sudden this phone starts playing creepy classical music. I though I was having a flashback or something.

[Axel]

Is the modem on a dedicated line, or is it on the general house line?

If you have a dedicated modem line with it's own number, there's a chance it isn't a faulty modem, but some fax distribution list or auto-dialer out there may constantly be trying to dial into your computer to transmit something to it.

What kind of modem is it?

Have you tried putting a regular telephone on the line? - Might be that during a repair, the phone company crossed the twisted pair and you're getting a constant ring. Could also be if the phone guy attached a tone generator on the line trying to track down the line for a repair. Your modem might think a call is inbound.

Or - the modem may now be a door-stop - get a good external next time. /forum/wink.gif

[Susan]

My office modem got zapped during a storm and it clearly showed in the Control Panel/Modem Diagnostics that there were errors.

I'm not sure if he will be able to run diagnostics on it while it behaves like that, but he could try.

[Axel]

Winmodems were created by an evil ratbert marketing entity - I'm convinced!!

Winmodems are door stops - that thunderstorm was a blessing - now - go forth and buy a non-winmodem - external model and live a better life!

[cobrien99]

/forum/smile.gif Thanks all! Before I got a cable modem, I used an internal US robotics Courior V.Everything (non winmodem) never had any problems. Any reason why you all seem to like external ones?

Chris

[XT]

You said it tries to dial some #? It may be that for some od reason the # last dialed is stored in the flash rom and something is forcing it to dial. Weird. If you can, try flasing the modem from dos, see if any old com program can see and communicate with your modem, you may have killed your rom and a simple reflash may save it, seen this happen before.. Good luck /forum/biggrin.gif

[cobrien99]

Thanks for the responses, it's a 56k winmodem US robotics. It is on the house line, whenever they tried to plug it in when we were talking a loud buzzing came on the line. The phone lines work fine for the phone still. They said it seemed to try to dial the same number over and over with 20 second pauses :P I am thinking it's probably fried, lucky them nothing else seems to have any problems...

[Axel]

With an external modem, if it goes weird on you a) - you can see from the LED lights what it's doing and b) you can turn it off without turning off the CPU to reset it. You also keep your expansion slots free for other things and seem to have fewer IRQ and software conflicts if you have the COM ports set up correctly. All in all, a lot less grief than an internal.

[cobrien99]

I see, thats cool. Her brother ended up buying a new modem, I haven't talked to him to see what he ended up with but I assume the new modem is working since I haven't heard anything since. Thanks for all the responses.

Chris