Missing modem in XP Home

[bill1971]

Have a basic Dell 4300 P4 1.6GHz that came with XP Home. I've added memory, soundcard, network card and 56K modem, along with a DVD-ROM, and TV tuner, as my son will be taking this with him to college next month.

Had troubles with Musicmatch for some reason, but finally worked out the bugs there. So now I'm thinking everything's cool, but when I go to connect to the internet via the modem, it won't, because the modem has disappeared from Device Mgr.

Where did it go? I swapped out modems, but when I went to install the XP driver from the modem CD, it will start the installation, and then the screen locks up.

Do I need to swap back to the original, and do the "enum" deal in the registry?

Also, I booted from a Home OEM disk, and got to the Repair XP option, but it asks me for an Administrator password(?) Even though I'm the Administrator, I didn't set any password.

Is there a std password to use that will work, something like "admin"? (Tried that. . .no go).

I was just getting used to XP Home and Pro, and now these probs! I'm starting to like swearing at BG!

Thanks for the help.

- Bill

[Micro Bean]

I had that same problem with admins thing with password it turned it was the memory. So you may want to check that put the old memory in and see what it does. For the modem goto the manufacture website and see if they updated drivers for I believe that maybe the issue thats causing the lock up. Try installing it in safe mode and see if that helps if not look for the upgrade

[bill1971]

Thanks MB:

Memory? Can you explain a little further? Do you mean the original SDRAM configuration? How odd, but I'll try it. . .

Also, I dwnloaded the latest XP driver from the mfr, and it locked up during the installation as well.

How do you get to safe mode in XP?? For these Dells, there's an F12 Boot Menu option, but no selection for Safe Mode. Tried F5, F8, and holding a key down during boot-up, but it still booted into XP.

Thanks for the help.

- Bill

[twistedbrntucker]

RAM might be an issue.Did you put all the items in at once? Or do an install one at a time and reboot?
Might be that one of your PCI cards doesn't like to slot it is in.I am guessing the TV Tuner.Take it out as well and uninstall drivers and reboot.Then see what happens.I think you have an IRQ issue.

[bill1971]

Thanks for the reply, t:

The base system had a 64MB GF2 MX400 AGP card installed, and 128MB RAM. I immediately added 256MB add'l memory, and a soundcard. Also came with a 24x burner, to which I added a 16x DVD-ROM drive. Next I added a NIC. Since my son's dorm space will be extremely small, decided to add a Pinnacle PCI TV tuner.
Everything worked well at this point.

Since he has only dial-up at home in Texas, decided to add a modem. (This is a mATX board, so now all of the slots are filled).
But everything was working well.

Last thing installed was an Epson printer. That install went well.
When I went to connect to the internet to register the Epson, all went well.

After messing around with Musicmatch some more and getting it going, went to connect to the internet, and that's when I found that a modem was not found, and that it was missing from the Device Mgr.

I always add one device at a time and reboot to check functionality - it's just the way I've always done it.

I also used the System Restore to a previous checkpoint, but still no modem, so you may be onto something with the IRQ issue.
And that's the trouble w/ these Dell OEM boards - very limited BIOS configuration options are available.

- Bill

[twistedbrntucker]

I had to ask. Some people just throw it all together and scratch their head????

Might be a power supply issue as well. Not enough voltage/wattage to support everything you put in.They cut corners in building those.Not bashing, just the facts as I see them.Can you put a better power supply in there as well?Perhaps an Antec TruePower 350 430 480?
My guess is still the tuner versus the sound card. What brand?

Epson printer USB?

[twistedbrntucker]

And that's the trouble w/ these Dell OEM boards - very limited BIOS configuration options are available.

They dumb down the BIOS.Same as with HP Compaq etc etc.
I still can't remember how to get into my HP.LOL
I have a MSI nForce2 rig, which I built, and know more about that one than my HP P4.The HP is still under warranty and I was in the BIOS once to disable onboard sound.

[twistedbrntucker]

About modems. I went over to a friends house to speed his up a little. YADA YADA ,selective startup stuff, updates.Updated the driver for his modem and it disappeared as well. It was a Compaq. Turned out I got teased for ruining his PC at work.Found out there was a patch at the Compaq site which dealt with that very same thing I just did. You were supposed to install the patch before you update the drivers. Anything like that at Dell?

[bill1971]

Thanks,t:

Well, here's what I've done up 'til now, and to answer your other inquiries:

- Got into safe mode, and was able to install the modem driver successfully, but upon reboot into normal XP, now the system locks up at the logon screen.

- At least the modem is listed in Device Mgr, only with the exclamation point, if I reboot to the "last known good configuration" (because the driver was never completely installed).

- The Epson is hooked up using std parallel port.

- All IRQs seem to be OK - no conflicts - XP seems to have done a nice job here ; video and TV tuner on IRQ 16, the modem all by itself on IRQ 11. So I don't think it's an IRQ issue.

- Switched back to my original modem, and XP doesn't see it at all.

- Dell has a couple of patches -I'll install these tonight, but it doesn't look like they're related to the prob I'm having.

- Tonight, I'll go back to the original memory config, and see if I can't do an XP Repair.

- Will also try switching out PSUs.

Thanks for all the input.

- Bill