"NO DIALUP", "There is no answer" AND "could not connect to remote computer" errors

Here are further details:
1. I have two OS: Windows 98SE and Windows 2000 Professional. The wrong behavior is identical on both OS. Also all actions described bellow were tried on both OS (without success).
2. I tried to check and uncheck the "Wait for dial tone before dialing". For each status of check-box I tried to connect, but it failed in the way I already described.
3. First jack makes a physical connection. In order to be sure about this I did the following thing: I connected my phone to the phone jack of modem, having the modem connected to the phone line. When I pick-up the phone I can hear the dial tone, I can dial and speak. This means the dial tone arrives inside modem, then goes outside to the phone. I double-ckecked each time to not switch the "line-jack" with the "phone-jack" on modem card.
4. I do not have Voicemail service.

Marius_Samoila,
    The 28 KHz connection with our old modem gave you dependable connection, but it is not very fast for a 56 K modem.  So you have a noisy line.   Try opening the plug and cleaning out the jack that you will be using with your modem?  If you can get the telephone company to change the lines and connections, you can get better connection.

Do you have an answering machine on the same line? (not necessarily the same jack).  Remove all devices from your phone line and then try dialing in.

For your dial-up settings, make sure you have the DNS number from you ISP.  Once you have the number, go to Start > Run > Settings > Dial-up Networking.  Right click on your ISP connection and select Properties.  Click on Networking tab. Check TCP/IP box and click on TCP/IP settings button. Check Specify name server addresses. Type in Primary DNS and Secondary DNS if available. Click OK.

Best wishes, war1

Hi marius,
  It could also be something as simple as a wrong or defective driver. make sure Ur driver settings are correct

Also, check that u are using the same com port that U used for the older one. If not, set the modem to use ur trusted port fromevice manager. If thats doesn't work, change from BIOS setup, the settings for ur serial port. U should also confirm that Ur serial ports are setp to allow 56.6K transfer from Windows Device manager. Change the Input/Out Resource Range & the IRQ in BIOs setup & see if U find any improovement. Do write if u want more step - by - step expln on any of the above steps.

Regards,
Zubin

your isp may have given you string settings for your modem to "stabilise it" and so are expecting 28.8 kbps
if you connect at higher they may terminate the connection

is your phone noisy? it may be a line quality problem also though i doubt it usually you can connect tcp ip is very resilient and connects at a suitable speed to counter errors
but if it is a little noisy contact you phone company and ask for a dc line test

Waveblaster

Marius
Check Ur UART settings in CMOS setup for internal COM ports U use.
Alter them to different settings & see what happens....

Regards,
Zubin

Hi marius,
  try this :  Check ur compression properties for the modem. Mostly set it to hardware with flow control. Or try software with XOn/Xoff. use Error Correction & Data Compression with Parity(try both odd & even parity). Also check that ur protocol is correctly set up to allow authentication over an unsecure TCP/IP connection. See that Ur stop bits is set to 1 or 2 not more. Also do all this with any random options from all the other settings.

Regards,
Zubin

Hello.

It is quite obvious you are experiencing problems because of a poor phone line quality. In order to make it work you have to use the modem from your old computer. All modems are different and not necessarily an expensive modem will produce good results. To help this, you have to contact your phone company. BTW, if you want your modem to ignore dial tone, add the atx1 as the initialization command for the modem.

Another solution would be to try a different dialup pool if your ISP has one, or try a different ISP because another ISP may have a different brand modem pool or just use a different phone number which better connects to your phone line. There are really many issues here but you have to first contact the phone company. Tell them you can't use your dial up. Maybe they have a special tariff for data lines or something. Anyway, it's their business and they are getting paid for it.

Regards,
- Jimmy

Two things, in addition to what everyone else said:

1) Use Hyperterminal to dial and connect to your ISP.  If it works, you have something set wrong in your dialup connection.

2) If all else fails (although Windows has recognized USR modems since it started recognizing modems), you can alwways use the "Generic Modem" setting.  USRs will work fine with that.

It sounds as if your phone line isn't capable of 56k, as war1 said (poor line quality and noise are two possible reasons).  You can force the modem to a slower speed - just check the manual.  (I don't have the USR manual on-line in my wet-ware any more.)

Marius,
   We have not heard from you? Did any comment help you solve your problem? Do you have any more questions? If an Expert help you, please accept his/her answer and provide him with an excellent or good grade.

Thanks, war1

Hi all my friends,

I am happy that I am not alone with this modem trouble. Thank you very much for each of you.
Here are more information:

1. Last week in one day only I was able to connect with my modem. I used that unique wall phone-jack from where the modem can recognize at least the dial tone. That day I was very happy and I thought that all troubles went away. I was able to connect at 14k. I hang up and try again and again. Each time was a success! But it was one day only... Next day, with the same hardware/software configuration, dialing to the same phone number I wasn't able to connect. Nothing was changed, I repeat, neither hardware or software. Since that day I tried without success, having the same error I described above. I stopped all applicances in home, I bought a smart "SurgeMaster" power-bar, hoping that there is noise in power supply. Now I have to return it because I had no success. In the best case I reach the dialog "Verifying user name and password" after this the error message comes up.

Sometime I kept the phone receiver to my ear just to "hear" the communication. Because the modem speakes becomes mute after a while. I can hear the handshake dialog, during "Verifying user name ans password" the noise stpos suddenly. Obvoiusly I provided the goon login name & password (anyway a Retry dialog should be provided if it is wrong login/pwd).

Even I didn't reply until now, I read each of your comments. Here are some answers for your comments:

1. I do not have answering machine. I just have a simple cheap phone (just about 10$) with no features at all. When I experiment with my modem I unplug it, or I plug it into the phone jack of modem.

2. I do not connect to any ISP. I just connect to a server of the company where I work. In this way I can use the MS Exchange E-mail. I still can access Internet because I become my computer joins the "Intranet" network, which has Internet access. The IP address is automatically provided by DNS server. The DNS address is obtained automatically. These settings are according to our System Administator. With the same settings the old computer worked, and the new one works when I am using the phone line from the store where I bought it, or even from my home in few cases when it worked.

3. The phone jack is clean. The last resort is to ask my phone company (Telus) to change the lines. Also I read the comment about a DC test. I put these two items on the list of next steps.

4. The modem uses COM3 port. Under Win2k I can specify the port. I tried with COM5, the same result.

5. Nobody gave me or told me to use connect strings when I try to connect to this phone number. I talked to the office with System Administrator about this issue and he tried to give an explanation: there are a lot of wires to provide 4 phone jacks in the whole house. For this reason the it is harder to keep the shape of electrical signal (the modem is not able to raise the voltage to 75V and 110V when ringing because there are to much wires. He thinks that using only one wire with only one jack may fix the issue. Then he askes if my pone line (which lies on some tree branches until it reaches the pole) is too close of my power lines. But nothing has been chnaged here. Here I was thinking that the PC case may have a cheap power supply and the modem is not working porperly with this. May be it needs to generate 75/100V using a +5V power supply.

6. Using Hyperterminal I always can connect from that unique phone jack, but not from the others. I will try using "Generic modem" to see waht's happens.

Marius_Samoila,
   If you can make a connection, then there is nothing wrong with your setup. The problem is in the connection to the phone line or the phone line itself.  You have tried other connections in your house?

Hello,

I tried to measure the noise.

After I dialed (with ATDT) the number from my company I received this:

CONNECT 26400/ARQ/V34/LAPM/V42BIS

Then I pressed +++ and I entered aty11. Here are the results:

Freq         Level (dB)

150           28
300           23
450           22
600           22
750           22
900           23
1050          23
1200          23
1350          23
1500          24
1650          24
1800          25
1950          25
2100          25
2250          26
2400          26
2550          27
2700          27
2850          27
3000          27
3150          28
3300          29
3450          31
3600          37
3750          44
OK

The I tried to connect to 18008467562.
This is the result:

CONNECT 28800/ARQ/V34/LAPM/V42BIS
Welcome!
Type 'gwclient' and press enter to logon.
Once connected, click Done (NT) or press F7 (95)
and open your web browser. Then type this URL:
http://www.gateway.com
then press enter.

Login:

And after +++ and aty11 here is the noise:

Freq         Level (dB)

150           16
300           15
450           15
600           15
750           15
900           15
1050          15
1200          16
1350          16
1500          16
1650          17
1800          17
1950          17
2100          18
2250          18
2400          18
2550          19
2700          19
2850          20
3000          20
3150          21
3300          23
3450          26
3600          31
3750          37
OK

I noticed that at my company the noise is lower at 1200 bps. I tried the dial-up connection at 1.2K and it worked OK. It was very slow, but I could connect without problems any time. I was also able to browse an internet page (just to double-check). Of course a 1.2K speed is not acceptable. I tried at 2.4K and it didn't work. I also noticed that the noise level is smaller when I try to connect to my company that that 1-800 number. May be on the other side there are noise factors, too.

I noticed that the modem card is inserted between video card and network card. There is still a free PCI slot between video card and modem card. Next step I try to move the modem card at the bottom  most PCI slot (near the bottom side of case). I hope that the video & network cards are also a noise factor.

I believe thet there are several noise sources:
- noise of my phone line
- noise of their phone line (on the other side - depends of dialed number)
- noise from inside my computer.

When these three items are combined the total goes over the limit. In this way I can explain why my old computer worked, the new one works from the store phone line etc. Because in each case there is a factor of noise which is smaller and the total value decreases.

I keep you updated with the results using a new PCI slot.

Thank you for time & cooperation,

Marius

Hello,

Great !!!  Way to go Marius  !!!

Go marius.. Go Marius !!


You may have also noticed the following both time you connected. This was the details

1) CONNECT 26400/ARQ/V34/LAPM/V42BIS
2) CONNECT 28800/ARQ/V34/LAPM/V42BIS
hwere the first is the connection speed the third and the last are the Modem standard.

So basically your connection speed has not changed much. The first one is 26400 KBps with the Modem
Standard being V42BIS and the second one is 28000 KBps, again with the Modem Standard being V42BIS .
This speed can also be considered quite slow. The good thing though is now I think you are connecting
somewhat better.

Also try to change your modem init string and put this in it " at-v90=17 ".
This would force your modem to connect at 48000 KBps.
Thew following website would give you more information regarding modem init strings for various
modems. See if your modem is mentioned there and use the init string tfor it, after changing it as mentioned  
above. See if that brings about any better change.

Hope this helps.

http://www.modemhelp.org

Hi all,

I fixed my modem issue. I moved the modem card on the bottom most PCI slot.

As I wrote in prevoius comment the noise is the addition of three sources: my phone line, their phone line and my computer. The noise from my computer was pretty high. At the store they had good phone line this was the reason it worked there all the time. At the other side they have more than one modem, with different quality, this was the reason very seldom I succeeded to connect from my home. A good quality modem was to the other end.

Now, with the modem in the bottom-most PCI slot two days in row I was able to connect. I wait two days to test before writing the results in this forum just to be sure it works. On worst I was able to connect at 14K. On best I was able to connect at 31K ( ! ). Even with my old modem I never reached 31K.

Looking more careful at the video card I also noticed some coils. You can imagine the electric/elecromagnetic fields. The video card has also a fan.


Thank you for your support.

Marius