Well now, that was fun!

[longnine009]

I've discovered that when I have to disconnect and re-connect every five minutes that it usually means the modem is on it's last leg. This year I decided not to wait but pulled out the weak modem and installed a new one that I had bought last year just to keep on hand, and apparently before retail stores stopped selling "built to xactspessa4cations"  dial up modems. 

Then Windows appeared to be telling me that if  installed the driver that it came with I would effect be sending my computer into the pits of boiling sewage for all of eternity. 

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, just install the driver butt head."

"Click"

"oops."

Blue screen of death. I didn't even know you could get those with XP. Apparently Windows was able to recover from it and even said so when I re-booted.

Now I have the old modem back in after making trips to five stores and not one that sells dial up modems. Including CompUSA.   Image that? I can 't just walk into CompUSA and buy a modem, apparently any modem, since I never said I was looking for the dial ups just the modems.

"Where are your modems?"
"We don't carry modmes."
"CompUSA doesn't carry modems?"
"You can order them on-line."

"Oh really? What's plan B. "

But I've ordered a couple of them on-line and one of them is a plug and play. Hopefully that one will be a bit harder to screw up. 

[Paint Your Wagon]

I had one modem for 6 years and just gave away the backup spare never had a problem with the modem .
I am now on a 4 channel swithched router since 6 month since I tried a home networked hardwired and wireless.
The only crap I have is XP pro itself which after six months start to act up
So I got me for free process explorer from www.sysinternals.com and have started to kill one by one all those useless helping programs
First I killed was Nero Scout totally useless for my purposes and does not even work in the background but grabs your computer and uses
1 M Ram memory

[longnine009]

I've never had any luck with modems. I even bought an external about three years ago because they're suppose to be a lot better; the proof apparently being that they  cost $85 at the time. Ha, I don't even think it lasted as long as a $12 Internal.

I've heard that there are Commodore64 people on the Internet who are rather proud of the fact they can get on  at all.  That's me!  I'm going to be the last dial up dreg in North America. 

[Paint Your Wagon]

Oh I forgot to say my modem and router are external cause an internal is cheap and does not last and is difficult to replace etc

The modem I had for 6 years was indestructable a Copperjet dial up
I am now on a speedtouch router and ADSL the speedtouch will go 150 yard broadcasting encoded to my laptop so that in summer I can sit
in the guarden with my laptop

[longnine009]

People  collect old computers and even old radio vacuum tubes.  Why not old dial up boards? I'm going to save this modem. It's got the name on it and even the date of manufacture Dec. 2006--Probably Dec 7  .  And I still have the "original packaging"  the CD driver and even the instructions. I'm on the road to riches here.

The "modem from hell" may one day appear in a major auction in "the year 2525."

[longnine009]

I got the modems today and installed the so called plug and play. Yes sir, just plug in the cd with the driver on it into your e drive and it might play. Well at least it didn't send  windows into some kind crack-head seizure.

It's scary though. It's the cheapest modem I've ever used $9 but it's the highest connection I've ever had--a whopping 40k connection    Wonder how long this will last? Nine days I suspect.

[Humpybong]

Sometimes the highest priced article is not the best.

I have found that you try the cheaper versions and get a very pleasant surprise.

[longnine009]

I know, let's put a  Texas Instruments calculator in charge of the federal reserve. That will only cost $15. And at the very least it will be able to do simple arithmetic.