Can't Query External Serial Modem

Wed Apr 11 05:42:11 UTC 2007

by Tommy Trussell Mar 14, 2007; 03:25am
On 3/12/07, Bernard Helyer <b.helyer at ...> wrote:
> >The send/receive lights should flash with every keystroke, so my first
> >thought is that either the cable is bad, wired wrong, or you're not
> >pointing at the right serial port.
>
>Well, as I said, wvdialconf makes the lights turn off and on when querying
>/dev/ttyS0, and that's what both minicom and HyperTerminal (com1) are
>pointed to.

>That's a good start... but the problem is, if the cable is wired for
>another type of device, you may just be seeing the handshaking lines
>going high and low, making the lights change. If you have not found
>any serial setting that makes the Tx and/or Rx lights flash with every
>keystroke, I will be further convinced that your cable wiring is
>suspect. The cable may not be "broken" per se, it may just be wired
>for a different thing. For example, here's your description

>(the 56k one that plugs into the modem is
>round and small to a 9pin, and was the one the previous owner used I think)

>This COULD describe a cable for a Macintosh (their serial ports are
>round) but having the 9-pin female connection on the other end would
>be backwards. (You haven't mentioned that you're using an adapter.) If
>you have a manual for the modem, it might indicate the proper
>connections, which you could confirm with a continuity tester.

>I just did a couple of Google searches, and found a few reviews. I
>found a couple of red flags -- for example the modem apparently was
>marketed with some telephony features in their Windows drivers
>(something about working with your sound card), which MAY mean that
>it's not actually a standard serial modem. Apple made one like that --
>it was actually an external DSP that required driver software on the
>Mac. PLUS there are numerous support board postings where folks were
>distressed that there was no driver for it when they upgraded to
>Windows XP.

>Oh and I just found your forum thread
>http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=376327 so I'm reading it to
>see what else you've tried. Yeah... I see. Hmm...

>We can't be sure it's the right cable, AND we can't be sure it's
>actually a serial modem. Maybe that's where the "Fun" comes from in
>its name. ;-)

>SO maybe you want to tackle the winmodem again... but bad news...
>another Google search turned this up:
>http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=198730 -- apparently the
>linux driver that used to work won't work with newer kernels (this was
>written for Dapper). So I'd be afraid to recommend it if it might be
>touchy.

>Have you been through the steps at http://linmodems.org/ ? I gather
>that there are still some winmodem chipsets that are completely
>unsupported.

>Here's what I did in one case -- I went to a computer repair shop and
>paid them a few bucks for a Lucent winmodem they had pulled from a PC.
 >I knew I could find a driver for Lucent.... and it works OK...
>HOWEVER at this point I'm tempted to give up on it again and buy a
>cheapo serial modem from geeks.com -- they still have two models
>available, and each costs less than $10US. I want to ditch the
>winmodem because the system has an older Ubuntu on it and I know I'll
>have to deal with an upgrade, and if I can find an ACTUAL working
>serial modem it will be easy.

>Sorry my response has become disjointed -- I just had a bunch of
>interruptions (my workday started) so let me know how you fare...

Well, I found a specific Windows driver for this modem. No loving.

I'm incredibly frustrated at this point; I have tried more modems than any 
one man should have to! (Well, almost). I've tried:

The Winmodem that I bought. Scanmodem said no support, despite the outdated 
Linux Drivers -- next.

A Lucent Winmodem that I snagged off of a friend, that was supported by 
Martian according to Scanmodem. Install of Martian went fine; still didn't 
work. Windows found it by name, didn't work there, so I've assumed that it's 
broken.

I managed to get a 14.4Kbs External Serial Modem. No luck in either Windows 
or Ubuntu. Modem properties (Windows) can't query it, wvdialconf can't find 
it (Lights flash though).

Then I bought the damn 'fun' modem. No luck here either.

*Sigh*

My parents PC has a Connexant Softmodem that Linuxant supplies Linux drivers 
for. However, I can't see how to pay for it (they don't give a description 
on the site) and I don't have the money to spend at the moment at any rate, 
so I would be stuck at 14.4Kbs :(...

I don't have access to another PC with serial ports (My flat contains a G5 
iMac and two recent laptops, so no serial ports there.) so I can't try the 
modems on another PC. I have no more money to spend towards this problem at 
the moment, so I'm really stuck.

Though I have no way of proving it, I don't think it's broken serial ports 
(it could be, but it seems unlikely), the IRQ settings given by setserial 
match those given by the BIOS ... the cable is oddly specific, and used by 
the previous owner, plus I have two modems, two seperate 
(non-interchangeable btw) cables, so modem failure doesn't seem all that 
likely either...

So I basically just ruled out everything. Great. I have no freakin' idea why 
neither modem works. It could be two seperate things or a common problem. 
Without another PC to test them on, there's no real way of telling.

So I have two solutions to get dial-up internet goodness piped into my 
Ubuntu partition:

A)
Rip out the folks connexant (they upgraded to broadband), and settle for 
14k, booting into XP for 'heavy duty' stuff.

or
B)
Use one of the older Linux distros that my current winmodem came with 
drivers for (Fedora Core 3 I would probably end up with.

So, question: Which of these two options seems the preferable to you?

-Bernard.

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