Modem Trouble

[star_topology]

I have a friend who posed the question.
She has an old Compaq (6-8 years old) running Win98 that she gave to her son. Her modem no longer works.
She bought a new modem and installed it.
After much trouble, she eventually got the drivers installed and the device was available on the device manager.
However, she is getting no activity via AOL.
She and I both realize that AOL sucks, but it's her existing dial-up service, while she uses cable modem on her machine.
She says AOL will not initialize the modem when she tries to start it up.

I suggested that she set the modem to dial her cell-phone to make sure she's getting activity; or get another cheap Dial-up ISP.

I'm not sure if she would prefer to keep AOL, but since she has it, she'd like to use it I guess. So are there any suggestions to why this won't work, other than the Compaq being a P.O.S?

 

[smileygladhands]

If I remember correctly, AOL trys to take over everything.. but, if you can, try to set up the phone number on Window's "internet connection wizard". If there's an issue such as it not getting a dial tone or what not it would be able to troubleshoot it.

If that doesn't work, post here being more specific about the problems/error message it's encountering.

 

[star_topology]

I haven't actually SEEN the computer, but she claims when she opens AOL, the first step should be "initializing modem," and it doesn't find anything.

I've also suggested that she uninstall AOL then install the modem drivers first, then reinstall AOL. Dunno if that will work, but who knows?

 

[smileygladhands]

Actually, that's not a bad idea.. uninstall AOL - be sure to get the dial up numbers for her area first - then just use the internet connection wizard to connect. If it was any other ISP, you should be able to connect with no problem, but AOL likes to make you use its own browser to do so.. if I remember my sporadic, past experiences with AOL correctly.

Not only is AOL software/browser system intensive and slow, but it's extremely buggy. Maybe that's intentional so you'll always be willing to upgrade to their latest edition in the hopes it might end.
Perpetual dissappointment, I guess.

Anyways, see if she can do it that way. I doubt it's a driver issue since modem drivers are so common and generic these days.