ISA Modem will not work with onboard USB enabled

Clocker

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I was messing with a friends computer upgrading some things. Installed a TV tuner card, replaced Savage4 PSO video card with a TNT2 16MB.

Motherboard is an Abit VH6 (VIA 694 chipset) with Celeron 600:

http://www.abit-usa.com/eng/product/mb/vh6.htm

Her Diamond Supra 56i internal ISA modem is detected by Win98SE and installs fine. But, the modem can not initialize (not in control panel diagnostics or by here ISP software) UNLESS I have USB disabled in the BIOS of the board.

Things I recently did as part of the upgrade were:

Add 128MB for a total of 256MB
Upgrade to the latest VIA 4-in-1 Driver
Upgrade to the latest VIA onboard Sound drivers
Added the TNT2 AGP card
Added the TV Tuner Card

The modem is using a different IRQ than the USB controller. ANy idea why the modem will not functino with USB enabled on the board?

THanks,
Clocker
 

Tannin

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The first question with an internal modem over a year or so old, especially an ISA one, is "why did the damn thing ever work?" (If it ever worked.)

It's an odd one, Clocker. But internal modems are, frankly, absolute shits of things. So it's not that odd, really. Up until a year or so ago, we just refused to sell them point blank, because the massive amount of trouble they caused was not justifiable. I'd pull the TV card out and replace the old video card as a diagnostic measure. Also, remove the Detonator drivers - the latest Dets are flakey and can do some weird stuff.
 

Clocker

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Thanks T. I won't be messing with the system until they tell me they need to use USB. At that point, I can throw in my SM56 56K Winmodem. Their 28.8 AOL connection sux anyway and they won't want to put down the bux for a nice external model.

THat ISA internal they have has always been nice though. It is a 'real' modem and has been firmware updated to v.90 Something is weird with the mobo configuration or something. Maybe memory addressing is messed up ..


C
 

Mercutio

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Easiest fix is probably to turn off plug-and-play on the motherboard, manually assign IRQs and use whatever DOS utility came with the modem to make it stick to the IRQ you assigned to it in the motherboard BIOS.

I've seen boards that use the same IRQ for the second-to-last PCI slot, USB, and one of the ISA slots, as well. Which is awful. Why put so many slots on the board if you're going to do that. :[

And yes, internal modems are a pain. At least they've gotten better since the settings became re-assignable by software. Tannin won't agree, I'm sure, but I always hated having to pull the case off to change one (poorly-documented, no doubt) jumper or dip switch on a modem.
 
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