My modem disconnects me every 5 minutes

[netsecure]

Hello,
I have a winmodem of HSF conexant chip board which i use to connect to the net from FC4 by using a driver by linuxant. The problem which i am having is that it keeps disconnecting me after every 5, 10 mins. I tried different dialer like gnome dialer and wvbdial but the problem persists. Wvdial gives the error pppd: modem hang up phone line error no 16. something similar to this?
Whats really the problem? Is some of my configuration file at fault or is it due to the winmodem? DO i need to install another driver for it?
Help appreciated.

[Dan]

Hi netsecure,

Odds are, your problem is a bad phone line. Line quality is by far the most usual offender in a case like this.

Dan

[netsecure]

Hey Dan,
Thanks for the reply, You see the p hone line couldnt be a problem because i use the same phone line to connect to the net from windows xp and it works perfectly fine. Only on FC4 ikeep getting disconnected. I think the problem is due to the winmodem i have or maybe its driver is crappy... or maybe some tweaking in the configuration file needs to be done.
Thnaks

[Dan]

Moring Netsecure,

Sounds like you're right. The winmodem isn't happy.

And I doubt you'll ever be happy with the way a winmodem performs either. Even in a Windows box they have a large CPU load overhead. Switching to an external or at least a hardware controller modem will solve the problem, and improve performance in both operating systems.

See this thread for details. http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=122941

Dan

[tashirosgt]

I've had a similar problem (hangup after 5 minutes) with an external serial modem and the StartCom Linux distribution ( original installation, not updated). But I've never had the problem with FC2 or FC5. Anyway, this suggests that it may not be the "win" in the winmodem that is the problem.

[Dan]

Ok. Gotcha, tashirosgt.

I've personally never had any similar issues with hardware based external serial modems on Sun Java Desktop 2, RH9, FC2, FC4, FC5, Xubuntu, PCLinuxOS, Vector Linux, Dream Linux, Mandriva One, Knoppix, Gentoo, etc. (Hold it! strike that! I've never tried the Gentoo Live CD on a modem.)

EDIT: Ooops! Forgot about the USR v.92! :cool:

Obviously you have run into a problem that I haven't yet. So, the next question is, what was causing it, and how did you fix it? :)

Dan

[netsecure]

tashirogst. Did you have this same problem with FC4?
What did you do to solve it. I have just freshly installed FC4 and configure everything, and now reinstalling FC5 is the last thing i would wanna do at this stage.

[tashirosgt]

I've only used FC2 and FC5. FC4 was skipped. I had the problem only with StartCom (I forget which version) and I didn't solve it. I think the hardware I used with StartCom was a MSI K8N motherboard. My modem is a US Robotics external serial modem.

[Dan]

My modem is a US Robotics external serial modem. Ahhh! That explains it good enough for me!

In my experience, the USR V.92 external serial modem has been intermittently unreliable in SJD2 and RH9 and FC2-4 Linux environment. The USR phone techs and I went round and round trying to get it solid, but it never would settle down. On a Windows box, it worked solid as a rock! On Linux, flakey as the devil. Go figure! If I switched to the Zoom external and internal controller based modem, or the TRENDnet mentioned in the above link, things work as they should. Finally gave the USR (worth a hundred bux at the time!) away to a Windows user... and used the Zooms. Then I got DSL. :p

See the above link for likely replacement part numbers.

Dan