inetwiz setup allows only one dialup - no redial

[Pat]

Unfortunately I have very sketchy info here, but maybe somebody will know what's happening.  My brother has an internal modem in his computer.  He installs the modem.  Then he goes through Start, Run, Inetwiz to get his computer set to dial up tds.net, which is a local dialup internet ISP at Roosevelt Lake AZ.  He gets online, does all his email, etc etc, and apparently disconnects.  Then he can't get back online.  Rebooting the computer doesn't work. 

I remember in the old days we hated internal modems, because they didn't always reset.  The external ones had an on/off switch that reset it.  Otherwise, we'd have to reboot, and even that didn't help sometimes. 

Don't know if the problem is the modem not resetting.  Even rebooting doesn't help.  Or he's not doing something with the Network Setup Wizard.

Has anybody had this problem and figured out the solution?  If there's no quick fix, I'll have to drive the 300 miles round trip and try to figure it out.  Apparently tds.net tech support isn't helping.

Also, I'm looking for an external modem to purchase that allows on/off.  If they're USB, does just disconnecting and reconnecting the USB plug have the same effect as turning it off and back on? 

--pat

 

[Ned]

It would help to know exactly what happens when he clicks on the dial up network connection to try to get online.  Also the settings that he made may give us a clue.  I suspect he hasn't set up his location to autodial and he's trying to get online by just running his email program or the browser.  In that case, forcing the connection by double clicking the connection should work, but we need to know what happens.

 

[Karl]

Also, it sounds like the modem itself may not have been installed correctly or is using back-level drivers. Have him check the mfg's website for an update. If the connection is hung (staying connected) a soft reboot (hitting the reset button) will not always work as power is still on to the modem. You can usually check that by picking up a phone connected to that line. If he doesn't hear a dial tone, it's being held up by the modem. He should try a complete cold restart by powering off the system and then seeing if he can reconnect. Getting an external USB modem is, IMHO, not the solution. Properly set up, an internal modem is just fine and you don't have another box sitting around taking up space. Another possibility is that the modem is bad. Electrical surges; static, lightning, will cause them to lock up, so to speak.

 

[Pat]

The internal modem has been replaced once and reseated more than once. 

He is doing a hard reboot to reset the modem.  It's not working. 

The other day before he installed the replacement modem, I had him remove all modems.  He also removed the network connections that he had created trying to get the thing to work.  Then he did a hard reboot to make sure all modem info was deleted.  Then he installed the new internal modem.  Booted up, and Windows installed the modem drivers.  Then he went through inetwiz to create the network connection.  Got online, and it worked great.  Got offline (I assume), and tried to get back online, and it refused to work.  Hard reboot didn't work.  The phone line is not busy.  I've had this happen where the modem will disconnect, but it won't reset.  Then the computer thinks the port is already busy.  That's why the old external modem with the on/off switch helped, because turning the modem off and back on reset it. 

I know he doesn't know what to do.  I sure hate having to make the 300-mile rt and spend a couple hours working on it, most likely on a weekday so I can get tds.net's tech support, if necessary. 

--pat