the use and abuse of drivers

My mate got a cheap Aries PC (www.savastore.com/pc/default.asp) last year but hasn't used the modem before. When he tried to connect, it wouldn't work so I gave him some new drivers for it and they caused even more problems. When the computer starts it behaves very erratically from the logon screen. The bar is going like a duracell bunny and the cursor flashes on and off so quick you'd think it wasn't there. When you enter windows, the computer isn't stable enough to do anything and it certainly won't connect to the internet. I have solved the instability by removing the driver in safe mode.

The PC is Celeron 2GHz, ECS P4VMM2 m/board (inc sound/modem/graphics/LAN), 512Mb RAM, 80Gb HDD, CDRW, DVD.

It's a HSF modem, detected by the conexant utility as VIA (AC'97). It is in actual fact made by PCTel from what I can make out. I have tried PCTel drivers from the conexant site (they were bought over), the generic HSF drivers from conexant, the drivers available on the ECS page and some drivers I found in the windows catalog.

Windows always chooses the driver called HSP56 MR, but it's the one that causes instability. The only one that doesn't cause instability is the generic conexant one but then it doesnt work. It says error opening port (the modem is configured to COM3). Any ideas?

Are there other devices trying to use com 3 or perhaps irq 4?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nunob

Are there other devices trying to use com 3 or perhaps irq 4?

---

That's a confus-ed statement if I ever saw one ! ... com ports are either physical things - generally com1 & com2, which are serial ports on the back of the computer, or ennumerated (virtual) ones which represent a com port to the system & are mostly 'part of' a s/w modem though other things can create them too.

IRQs are Interupt ReQuests and relate to resources used by any ancillary device to signal to the CPU that it requires 'service' ....

So having critised the only reply (sorry ;)) ... what is the answer?

Assuming we are trying to get the onboard modem going ... go look at the ECS site again ... ECS site HERE ... how many revisions of this motherboard are there ?!!! - tried ALL of those or at least the ones for your motherboard revision ? - you need all the chipset patches too(get all the downloads available for whatever revision you have), and a bios update for the motherboard mightn't go amiss either...

Software modems aren't really modems at all, they connect to a serial port, the device you are trying to get going is a simple serial controller, hard wired to a modem chipset, this means you can't use generic drivers (well not until you get the controller bit correctly recognised) ... onboard are even worse than 'no-name' modems to get going sometimes ... if you can run to $15 or less buy a new modem (with drivers :D) & save yourself some pain, if my link doesn't help any ... defeatist, no doubt, but much simpler ;)

irq4 is allocated to com1 ie the serial port. the modem is allocated irq11. i will try getting all the new drivers at the moment.