Testing a modem

[xane]

For some reason I need to get a modem running up on my FreeBSD machine.

Unfortunately, the internal modem I have is a dreaded winmodem (Creative Modem Blaster V.92), and although FreeBSD has support for Lucent chipsets it does not support the ESS chipset in this one. I have a USB modem too, a dandy little Zoom V.90 Model 3090, but again FreeBSD has issues with USB and PPP even in the current release (4.9).

So I managed to dig out an ancient Pace 56K serial modem, stuck it into the COM1 port and tried it out on the FreeBSD machine using ppp, and got no response. Tried different serial leads, different speeds, a different port, no joy.

Eventually I went to all the trouble of enabling COM1 on my XP machine and trying that it out there, just to prove the modem. I ran up Hyperterminal, connected to COM1 and tried typing AT or ATI4 or ATZ, no response at all, went through all the speeds too.

Can anyone else suggest another method of testing it ? I suspect it is the modem as none of lights come on apart from the power.

Also, can anyone suggest a good external serial modem, I was going to go for the external version of the Creative Modem Blaster V.92 I have.

 

[Sibanac]

well along time ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and people still used analog modems i swore by usrobotics.
ofcourse i have been on cable for over 4 years so i things might have changed since then
BTW did you check com ports where enabled in bios and if its an older mobo, did you actualy connect the cable to the mobo ? (i have been know to forget such trivial things)

 

[leggy]

Originally posted by xane


Also, can anyone suggest a good external serial modem, I was going to go for the external version of the Creative Modem Blaster V.92 I have.

A second hand us robotics imo. I loved the one I had and still have it locked safely away in my cupboard.

 

[Testin da Cable]

I have a really old usrobotics 33.6 external modem. I'll give it a whirl on freebsd (4.8) and see what it does.

 

[-Ultimate]

U.S Robotics external modems and Diamond Supra Express external modems were the dogs danglies of external modems when i was on dialup a few years back.

 

[xane]

TdC

I was using ppp to test it;

> ppp
set device /dev/cuaa0 (this is COM1)
set speed xxxx
term

and this gives a direct conneciton to the modem, you should be able to issue AT command to get responses, like ATI4 (report modem id) and ATZ (reset, responds OK)

 

[Testin da Cable]

aye, just a quick one. got the modem plugged into serialA.
did set device /dev/cuua0 set speed 9600 set log all. when I did term it just sat there looking at me. no local echo or anything....but I did a tail -f /var/log/ppp.log in another terminal and saw all kinds of stuff go past. sorry not enough time to really look at it. I did note the tr[/]b led going on on the modem when I entered the term.

 

[xane]

In my case the TX light was not responding at all.

btw, you use ~. (tilde and dot) to get out of term

 

[Testin da Cable]

I know I might have some more time tonight to test it, but there's lots of stuff I have to do thus I may not get around to it :/