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- Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
- Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!destroyer!fmsrl7!lynx.unm.edu!zia.aoc.nrao.edu!crucci
- From: crucci@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (Chuck Rucci)
- Subject: Saga of a ZyXel U-1496E modem
- Message-ID: <1993Jan22.100038.26484@zia.aoc.nrao.edu>
- Keywords: dead
- Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro NM
- References: <1993Jan18.125324.7753@porthos.cc.bellcore.com> <WBE.93Jan18151532@crystal.bbn.com>
- Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 10:00:38 GMT
- Lines: 47
-
- This is the saga of a 1 month old dead ZyXel U-1496E and the events
- leading to it.
-
- It all started about two weeks ago when I started getting the line
- dropped at random times during my connection to our Unix computer.
- Immediately I blamed the system that I was dialing in to. Then as the
- problem started getting worse I knew that something else was wrong. It
- got to the point where some of the time the modem wouldnt even finish
- establishing the connection when it would drop. Compounded with this
- was the problem that about half the time after getting dropped I
- couldnt get a dialtone to redial. At this point I figured that the
- phone company was to blame and put in for a service call. The phone
- company checked the lines and told me that they would charge me if
- they had to check the house wiring. So at this point I called Zyxel
- and talked to Brent in tech support and he called me and said that I
- had a high S/N on my line. He had an order for the new 5.05 Roms
- placed for me since he didnt know why else the modem would drop the
- line and the not dial up again. He suggested that I call the phone company
- and have them check the line noise. I did that today and they called
- me back trying to sell me a " data quality phone line". My connection
- is only at 2400 baud!!!!!! (sad I know) I would think that the line
- could handle the 3 mile distance at a measly 2400 baud with MNP-5.
- So I called Brent back and told him that they told me the phone line
- was confirmed good enuf for voice transmissions. He started to get
- frustrated at this point and wanted me to try the modem onother lines
- because he was confident that the modem was not at fault,a nd he kept
- telling me that if I sent in my modem and they tested it and found
- nothing wrong with it that they'd just send it back to be and I'd be
- without my modem for about two weeks. Well just to prove a point I
- connected it up to my other fone line, and called up the system. after
- about the usual 15 mins I lost the connection and the modem finally
- died this time. It is not accepting any commands. Qmodem 4.5 wont even
- see that it exists. It says that the only active serial device is my
- mouse. If I press the voice/data button I can hear the dialtone of the
- phone line and the modem tried to sync up, but it will not communicate
- to the computer. I hope that ZyXel is now happy that the thing finally
- died and fell into the grave so that they can replace it now. It is
- very unfortunate that this is what it takes since everyone raved about
- these modems on the internet. (that's why I bought it in the first place)
-
- I hope that this helps sombody. I'll let you know how the exchange
- goes. Everyone cross your fingers.
-
-
- -Chuck
-
-
-