Motorola SM56 modem : No tonality problem.

[CougTek]

Hi,

I sold a Motorola SM56 PCI modem to a customer. It installed fine and Windows reconized it and accepted the drivers without a hick. But when I tried to dial any phone number with it, I always get an error message like what there's no tonality detected on the line by the modem. Problem is : the phone line is just fine. I can even plug a phone in the modem and make a phone call.

The only odd problem I get in Windows when browsing the modem properties is a message telling me that it doesn't have any hardware ID. First time I see that. Everything else is fine. I use it on a different COM than the mouse, I tried to plug it in another PCI slot, I uninstalled and reinstalled the driver several times and I also changed a few other parameters to no avail.

Anyone else ever had a similar problem?

BTW, it is used in a Win98 system, but somehow, I don't think the OS is the cause of the problem. The motherboard is using the VIA PLE133 chipset that is working very well otherwise. And I have the latest available version of the modem's driver.

 

[CougTek]

Can someone tell me why I didn't post this thread in the tech support forum? WHY?

sight....

I shouldn't post after 1am.

 

[Tea]

This may or may not be relevant to your situation, CougTek, but I'll give you my two cents worth. Phone services are not all the same. Every country has a different dial tone. The dial tone you hear when you pick up the handset in Australia is not the same as the one you get in France, is not the same as the one you get in the USA.

(And probably Canada too, even the part of it that isn't really a part of it - which I dare not mention by name because I can do the "Q" OK but I don't know how to make the little funny bits that go over various of the vowels that follow.) (Which is also, broadly speaking, why I still always refer to NRG = MC? as "Energy".)

(Tea! Stick to the point!)

(Sorry.)

Anyway, it's a routine part of modem installation down here, and no doubt in various other parts of the world too, to check if the driver software is Austrtalian or foreign. If the driver isn't a local version then you must switch off the tick box in the modem properties where it says "listen for dial tone", otherwise the modem starts listening for a US dial tone and waits and waits and waits until it gives up listening to the Australian dial tone and not hearing an American dial tone and says "no dial tone".

If you happen to have, say, a Japanese modem and the drivers have not been adjusted for your local dial tone, you will get the same problem.

 

[Tea]

Because you forgot.

 

[CougTek]

Thanks Tony. I'll try it.

 

[CougTek]

Just to provide a follow up to this story, the modem was dead. I tried another one, also from Motorola, and everything went smooth and fine.

Thanks for you suggestion anyway Tony. It might help me another time.

 

[Tea]

Thanks Coug. Now, can you teach me how to do the accents in the "Q" word?

 

[CougTek]

Thanks Coug. Now, can you teach me how to do the accents in the "Q" word?

On my keyboard, when I configure it as US English, the following alt + keypad # gives these french caracters :

• 
  alt-130 = é
  alt-131 = â
  alt-133 = à
  alt-134 caused page back under Netscape 6.2.1 (I usually use Mozilla, but I'm trying the latest Netscape release for now)
  alt-135 = ç
  alt-136 = ê
  alt-137 sent me at my home page :-?
  alt-138 = è
  alt-139 = ï
  alt-140 = î
  alt-150 = û
  alt-151 = ù

I didn't find ô. So, to write Québec on your keyboard, just type Qu(alt-130)bec and tadada. But I don't mind if foreigners skip the accents (especially foreigners as foreign as Aussies ;-) ). I only insist when I see french-speaking members skipping them.

 

[Tea]

Québec Cool!

Now, what's the alt-code for a proper em dash (the real one that printers use, not this silly minus sign that we all use as a substitute) and how many people's charsets will it break?

 

[Handruin]

How's this for alternate characters.

ò¿ö

 

[NRG = mc²]

Which is also, broadly speaking, why I still always refer to NRG = MC? as "Energy".)

Hey, whats so hard about NRG = mc²? (ALT-0178 FYI :mrgrn: )

How's this for some Bin-Laden language?

جزشگ۵۸۳چعבֿשּׂﺡﺤﻖﻬﻳ

 

[NRG = mc²]

Whoa... it just dumped the codes there though I pasted from character map.

I like using those characters when I get bored, I sedn messages like that on ICQ to my friends pretending their computer is broken, and finally after manu hours of them trying to communicate, I send them an image done in photoshop with the text "wtf is going on?!? phone me pls"

hehe. good way of killing time.

 

[Tea]

You are a strange man, NRG = MC²!

 

[Cliptin]

Tea,
If you do forget the ALT codes, you can search for "acsii codes" on google and then copy and paste.

Back in '90 I was taking German in high school and had to use the ALT codes when writing papers. It took all the fun out of using a word processor. At the time I thought my computer wasn't very good and had some limitation.

 

[Corvair]

...The dial tone you hear when you pick up the handset in Australia is not the same as the one you get in France, is not the same as the one you get in the USA...

To make it short:

A "USA" modem will work anywhere in North America, and I believe anywhere in South America. There has always been total compatibility across the USA and Canada since the beginning of the telefono.

I have a Hayes Optima 33.6 external modem at home that supposedly can work anywhere *worldwide*.