Poor line condition??

[brewerdude]

We have a fax machine in one of our offices using an analog port on our Merlin 7.0. When faxing out on this line the fax will have trouble handshaking, eventually fails and gives an error message of "poor line condition". I've reset the port, had a user try a different port on the same card and reseated the line card all to no avail. What's perplexing is that the fax receives with no problems.

Any ideas?

 

[tdaugirdas]

It could be the fax machine - and not the 012 or 016 module. I would have the customer connect the fax directly to a Telco line and try it - if the problem persists - then it could be the Telco line and/or the fax machine.

Tom Daugirdas,
President
STCG, Inc.
stcg.com

 

[brewerdude]

sorry, forgot to mention that we just replaced the fax machine.

 

[tdaugirdas]

They (fax machines) sometimes fail out of the box - so I would try to connect it directly to a known good phone line - and see if it works correctly. You could also try a single-line phone on the same port the fax is connected to - place a call and hear if the signal is staticky/noisy. Is the fax grabbing the same line always - or different lines out of a pool? Is the port set to autoselect a line or intercom?

Tom Daugirdas,
President
STCG, Inc.
stcg.com

 

[brewerdude]

We replaced the fax since the existing one wasn't working thinking the fax machine was bad, so since we have two different faxes not working on the same line, I was thinking it may be a line problem.

The fax would be utilizing our local and ld t-1's for outgoing calls.

I'll see if I can get someone there to put it on a POTS line.

 

[tdaugirdas]

Is it going out on a specific line - or picking a line from a pool of T1 lines? Any complaints from other users about poor connections, staticky lines, etc. who may, on occaision be pulling the same line? It could also be bad wiring from the fax to the 016 or 012 card. If you have a pots line or two available - I would try setting autoselect so that it pulls the pots lines first, and T1 lines last.

Tom Daugirdas,
President
STCG, Inc.
stcg.com

 

[merlinman]

My suggestion would be to connect it to a line ahead of the system, and then try it.

Also, one other question, have you recently changed to VOIP?

 

[brewerdude]

No VOIP.

 

[merlinman]

Have you tested ahead of the system?

 

[brewerdude]

We fussed around with it for a while and got it working again. Put the fax on a different analog port and put the original fax back in place.

Doesn't make sense, but it's working so I'm not going to mess with it.