Win98/AOL won't dial

[Charlie75]

Customer brought Dell PC in with fried modem due to lightning. Replaced modem with a Modem Blaster 56k. You can dial and hook to local ISP. AOL hangs when trying to access modem. I have been through everything with their tech support, but no luck. Modem installs on Com4 with no conflicts. Com1 and 2 can't be disabled for some reason. I turned them off in the BIOS but Win98 stiff finds them and installs them. I would like the modem to be on COM 2 if possible. I have installed/uninstalled AOL so many times that it is driving me crazy. I have also tried different modems with the same problem. Any Ideas to try??

[skut]

did you try configuring the modem for AOLs software? like change the device?

[Charlie75]

Yes, but when I would do that it would hang AOL.

[PHiLiP]

get rid of AOL! you will have to sacrifice your e-mail address, but you can retreive it off www.aol.com (http://www.aol.com) before you end your service. Try netzero.com or bluelight.com, or for no annoying banner, worldspy.com; the ISP's are all free. AOL SUX!

[The-Fro]

Try this, I did this when Win2K put my modem on a port that wasn't installed:

Use Device Manager to remove (not disable) the modem. You might also need to remove all of the COM ports as well. Reboot, and give it the drivers for anything it asks for. Then, if the modem isn't safely on COM 1 or 2, run the Add New Hardware wizard. If that detects nothing, manually add a COM port and reboot again. Repeat if necessary.

[lysergic]

Have seen this before. Uninstall AOL (and if on 95 IE4 or 5 seperatly. You may have to install the full version to be able to uninstal). Also when AOL uninstalls also make sure to get rid of any files it leaves behind. Then go through the registry and hack out anything having to do with AOL. Reinstall AOL fresh and see if that does it. It works like 60% of the time. Sometimes the only choice is to install to a fresh directory.