Windows 98 locks up when a phone call comes in.

Lots of possibilities, depending on your environment.  You could have a conflict (check device manager for anything bearing yellow exclamation marks, red x).  You could have some FAX software in use, or autoanswer defined via software.  

A little more about your environment, operating system, software, modem and/or fax, software in use at the time, bios settings to allow modem to wake the computer to autoanswer, and more.

The more you can provide about your unique setup, the better and quicker the help.

Since I don't know what type of motherboard or chipset you have, for arguments sake lets assume you have a newer model computer.  If that be the case then there is possibly an option in your system's BIOS under "Power Saving" (or something to that effect) that enables or diasbles "computer wakes up on ring", atleast this is an option I have on both of my Asus TX and BX boards.

This could be conflicting with your system even when it's already on.  It would be even more evident if you had the Intel LanDesk client installed as it will wake your pc out of "suspended mode" and may just be kacking regardless of whether you're on it or not.

There are two band-aid solutions:
1) check and see if your BIOS has this option and disable it, oherwise,
2) Get one of those little line switchers used for fax machines and ring detect from your telephone company and set it to ignore incoming calls on the line between the wall and your computer.

Cheers...

We're awaiting more about your setup and environment, since that will be instrumental in your best solutions.

I really don't know a lot about it, It is windows 98, on a compaq machine.  The BIOS doesn't have the option to enable or disable on a ring.  I will have to check the device manager settings for conflicts.  But basically when we got the computer, we turned it on and ever since then it has been goofed up, I didn't change and settings.

curtis

Is this modem internal and do you have the options of using a Bus mouse.

Netmage

Do you have call-waiting on the phoneline? The tones that this produces could send your modem in a tailspin. There is an option in the Dialing Properties sheet to disable it (check the code with your phone company).

Oops... disregard that. I missed the "I'm not connected" bit of the question. Sorry.

Try changing your phone cord (from the PC to the phone line) to a 2-wire version (look at the RJ-11 connector at either end to see if it's using all 4 wires or just the middle two).If this fixes it,you have a ground loop problem with a peripheral device or a voltage leak in your phone system.Let us know and we'll look further.

The compaqs usally come with like an answering machine software.
See if you can disable this software.  I beleive your system is setup to do somehting wihen the phone rings etc..

To test some of the assumptions I originally posted, I suspect you may be able to zero in on which component is involved when phone rings by placing a phone and checking which application or interface is initiated to answer the phone via checking ALT-CTRL-DEL and noting what is running at the time.

Perhaps knowing which modem, and modem-related software, including FAX,  you have would help further.

Thanks, I figured it was something dumb like that but didn't know where to look
Curtis

Great to hear of your success.

That's the beauty of this environment, so many people with so much to offer.  The right solution always seems to evolve, someone always finds the key.  Terrific!