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Grex Micros Item 175: PC Card Modem vs. Windows 95
Entered by krj on Wed Oct 29 08:48:51 UTC 1997:

After watching several friends and relatives tear their hair out
trying to install PCMCIA/PC Card modems, I swore I'd avoid those 
vermin forever.  No such luck; the new PC comes with one.

I haven't really started troubleshooting it yet.  Windows 95 
identifies the modem correctly, but it always claims that another 
program is using it.  This happens with both "Dial-up Networking"
and Hyperterminal.
 
It alarms me somewhat that the modem installation instructions said 
that Windows 95 would take drivers off of the supplied floppies.
However, Win95 showed no interest in the floppies; it just said,
yup, new modem in the PC Card slot, I installed it for you.
 
Pointers welcome.  I can always use the old external 14.4 while 
I try to pound the new modem into submission.

5 responses total.

#1 of 5 by n8nxf on Wed Oct 29 13:17:03 1997:

Wouldn't it be nice if Winvirus 95 told you *which* program was
using it?  Sure you don't have a IRQ/address conflict?

#2 of 5 by scott on Thu Oct 30 01:55:37 1997:

PC cards are rarely fun.  They are better than they used to be, esp. with
Win95, though.  Is there some kind of CMOS menu for it?  Other than that, I've
rarely found modems (even normal kinds) that come with the correct drivers.

#3 of 5 by scg on Thu Oct 30 06:31:01 1997:

I've never had a problem with the PC Card stuff I've had.

Look at what software automatically loads when the computer boots.  Some
computer I was messing with a while ago had a fax program that automatically
started and put itself in the background when the computer booted.  This
program, or course, was "using" the modem.  Since it was just sitting in the
background, it took a while to figure out what was going on.

In starting out with a new Windows95 system, I've often found it to be useful
to to format the hard drive and reinstall Windows95 from the CD, rather than
accepting the manufacturer's installation.  That way I know what I'm dealing
with, rather than having to deal with all sorts of weird configuration issues
that appealled to whoever set the thing up at the factory.

#4 of 5 by krj on Thu Oct 30 18:18:36 1997:

Steve:  a coworker suggested that, a clean installation.  Unfortunately 
Toshiba did not give me a CD; I am supposed to run a program to cut 
30 disks for my Windows95 backup.  :P
 
It appears that my PC Card Services is messed up; it's going into the 
"Other Devices" folder rather than my PCMCIA folder.  There's a 
Toshiba program called "Card Wizard" which is supposed to help resolve
these issues, but half of "Card Wizard" seems to be missing.
Sigh sigh sigh.  For now I just set up the external modem, which 
works just fine.  I'll get back to this in a week or two.

#5 of 5 by arthurp on Sun Nov 16 01:57:34 1997:

Try booting to safe mode by holding shift down while booting.  If your
device manager shows more than one of a particular thing (more than one
com port, COM1) then delete both and let 95 redetect it on reboot.  This
kind of trouble on the com ports gives me mysterious modem in use
messages all the time.

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