Modem ISA or PCI

[Little Ted]

i have a 56 speed ISA modem which works very well, but i have considered changing it for a PCI version What would the differences in performance be if any

[Szech]

You wouldn't be able to distinguish any change in speed. In terms of modems, the limiting factor is not the bandwidth between the bus and the modem, it's the slowness of the connection.

[TechJumper]

szech, does this factor apply to an external modem as well?

Mike

[Szech]

If I remember correctly, you need to have a high speed serial port to use an external modem that's faster than 38400 baud. This probably was only an issue back in the day when everyone had the normal serial ports. But yes, you're right, the serial connection can be a limiting factor as well. Didn't think about that one :0

[Comtech]

Back in the dark ages (pre 386 days) a com port could have been a limiting factor. Now the port speeds are (usually) standardized at 115,200bps, a port has almost no influence on modem speed. (PCI and ISA are much faster than that!
You may actually find a PCI modem will be slower than an ISA modem, mostly because 99% of all PCI modems are winmodems, and 99% of all ISA modems are hard modems. External serial modems are all hard modems. 99% of all USB modems are hard modems (carefull here, there ARE USB winmodems around!).
FYI, arguably the fastest modem around is the Diamond Supra Express External Serial.
Ask any gamer, or browse the FAQ's at www.56k.com (http://www.56k.com) for more.

[Ygor]

Hmmm, I've had 3 different ISA modems that turned out to be software upgradeable. Doesn't that make them winmodems?

[RenaissanceMan]

Just inputing here..... I have a USrobotics external 56k, consistant connection is 115,200 as comtech has stated. I have also always liked the external modem as it opens up a slot on the mb. I also like to watch all the flashing lights.
http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[WinXP]

The 115,200 you are reading is your port speed not your connection speed.

[fvay]

comtech,
most ISA modems are now soft modems

[CMonster]

Thanks Comtech for a little fact and common sense.

External modems are best. You can get an external modem for as little as $69 -a good one at that.

Even the lowly ISA bus is capable of throughput that makes a 56K modem look like a snail. Just ask anyone who has had an ISA NIC - would to God I could have a modem connection even as fast as 10Mb/s ethernet ~!~sigh~!~



[This message has been edited by CMonster (edited 11-10-2000).]

[Roy]

The newest hardware controller modems take advantage of the digital switches at the phone company and are substantially faster than those that don't.

Here's (http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007715.html) a thread about my quest. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[qball]

my 2 cents...

This works for NICs, so I'm assuming the same for modems, though modems may be slow enough to not make this difference applicable.

Anyway, I wrote a benchmarking app for a client that tested client/server communication, serverI/O, DBserver performance and some other stuff. We tested a variety of clients (win95, p90-p200, 800M - 2gig HD, 10baset ISA and PCI NICs). We then analyzed our results (wish I had a copy now...), anyway we were amazed to find the PCI NICs outperformed the ISA NICs by almost 20% (this actually wasn't what we were looking for). There was some speculation that perhaps the PCI NICs had faster procs (true), but NICs aren't very processor intensive compared to modems. The conclusion I drew was a 8Mhz ISA bus is ALWAYS slower than a 33Mhz PCI bus, period.

As I stated, modems are a lot slower than NICs, but I would still guess a PCI modem is still faster than an ISA modem. But, probably not by enough for one to notice.

[Comtech]

Modems (like motherboards) have a BIOS.
Winmodems DO NOT have a BIOS.
Hard modems are software upgradeable, just like the BIOS on your motherboard.
You must "flash" it.
Winmodems do not take a flash, they upgrade via drivers.
There are NOT many ISA modems being manufacturered any more, and those that are fall in the 1% that I mentioned above.