Internet keeps disconnecting

[happygooner]

Recently my girlfriend bought a new computer from PC World. At first it seemed to work ok but the majority of the time now it will keep disconnecting after saying you have just ignored an incoming call. The phone is set up to take calls while online and obviously to disconnect when the phone rings. However after further enquiries to the support line she has been told this.

"The electricity gain tells internet company to disconnect line every now and then when there is a sudden surge of electricity which they take as being an incoming call. There is nothing wrong with the modem and increasing gain or decreasing gain online will do nothing to alter this. Further more it will make no difference if a separate line is purchased for the internet."

After all of the above they advised her to go to a site

http://www.fmlink.com,

register (for which she needs to pretend she belongs to a company), go to support, LHS downloads, internal modems, agree to that and finally download the following:

PC1, CNR, AMR

After following this procedure I cannot find any of the above links and they do not appear to be anywhere else on the web either! She was also given a site

http://www.pcservice.co.uk

which again seems to hold no more info than the previous ones!!

If this is a problem that anybody out there is at all familliar with I would appreciate any suggestions you could make greatly?????

 

[satrow]

Sounds like you have a SM56 Motorola modem or similar, with modem on hold etc. You will proably be happer with a proper modem!

Andy.

 

[happygooner]

It was a modem which came built into a Packard Bell PC. Is there no other help you can give while keeping the existing modem?

Surely it should work regardless of which type it is when they sell it as a package??

It's strange but the disconnecting is a sporadic thing and since I posted the initial request for help it hasn't disconnected again yet.

There must surely be a reason for this happening some times which can be rectified?

 

[mattjurado]

Actually no, computers are like cars. Some have good parts, some have cheap parts. And a Packard Bell? There's a reason why that company died in the computer hardware market.

Matt J.

Please always take the time to backup any and all data before performing any actions suggested for ANY problem, regardless of how minor a change it might seem. Also test the backup to make sure it is intact.

 

[rclarke250]

Actually Packard Bell didn't die....they were bought by NEC and then they phased the brand out in North America,because of a negative brand recognition. It is still available in Europe but is the same as NEC machines sold in N.A. or at least it was a few years ago.

I have seen things like call waiting and such knock a modem off line. If I still had dial-up I would invest in an external modem,they are much better then the winmodem found internal to most computers. But poor phone lines,spurious voltages and the like cause noise,and too much noise and the modem will go on hook and kill the call. Other modems,good external, will handle the noise better,and are more stable.