External modem not recognized if off while booting

[KF]

If the switch is off on my external modem when XP boots up, or resumes from Standby, XP says there is no modem even after I turn it on. This was not the way it was for Windows 98; any time I turned it on was fine.

I reinstalled the external modem (Zoom) when I upgraded to Windows XP some months ago. And it works fine except for this.

I sometimes shut off the modem when I shut off the computer. I also shut it off so XP doesn't dial up the Internet whenever if gets the urge, which it seems to do for no apparent reason. Practically any program I run seems to want to dial the Internet too, just for the heck of it I guess. Then if I turn ithe modem on after XP boots or resumes, the dialer says "Please install a modem" when I try to dial. If I reinstall the modem, XP will recognize it immediately, without rebooting. But the problem is still the same on rebooting or resuming.

If I put the computer in Standby, turn the modem on, and Resume, the modem is back. That's my work-around. I thought I'd figure this out eventually, but I haven't. All I want is for XP to do what W98 always had no trouble doing. What could be so hard? But I can't figure out any way to do it. Does anyone have an external modem setup so XP doesn't mind it being off when XP starts? Any ideas?

Maybe I could just put in a Winmodem. Except with the lights on the external, I can tell if and when I'm connected. I can also tell if a site page is stalled or still loading. If a file is still downloading. ETC.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: KF
If the switch is off on my external modem when XP boots up, or resumes from Standby, XP says there is no modem even after I turn it on. This was not the way it was for Windows 98; any time I turned it on was fine.

Yes, as best as I can tell, that's just the way it is with XP - some difference in the way serial devices are handled. All external modems work like that. Sorry.

I also shut it off so XP doesn't dial up the Internet whenever if gets the urge, which it seems to do for no apparent reason. Practically any program I run seems to want to dial the Internet too, just for the heck of it I guess.

But turning off the modem is not the proper solution to this problem. There should be an option in the connection properties to control auto-dialing/connection. Turn auto-connect off, and leave the modem on.

 

[KF]

>Yes, as best as I can tell, that's just the way it is with XP

Thanks. I will quit spinning my wheels.

>But turning off the modem is not the proper solution to this problem. There
>should be an option in the connection properties to control auto-dialing/connection.
>Turn auto-connect off, and leave the modem on.

I started with auto-connect off, because generally I prefer not to have things decide what to do on their own. But I have an auto-downloader that will redial if disconnected and that only works if I have auto-connect on. I wish that just that one program could over-ride XP, but it doesn't. (My $6.95 ISP disconnects me every 4 hours.) What would be nice is a Windows button that would toggle that auto-connect funciton on and off to make it convenient.

 

[camara120]

I think my work around was to turn the modem on
go to the phone and modem options control panel
go to the modems tab
click add
let it autodetect the modem again

 

[thraxes]

Or go to the device manager and run "detect devices". Thats what I do.

 

[NogginBoink]

This is a side effect of plug and play.

Most PnP devices, the computer can detect insertion events... USB and IEEE1394 and PCMCIA all detect new devices and send a signal to the OS when new devices get added.

The serial port was developed long, long before PnP and has no way to signal the OS that a device has been added.

Going to device manager and scanning for new devices is probably the only solution, other than leaving your modem on.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: NogginBoink
This is a side effect of plug and play.

Most PnP devices, the computer can detect insertion events...

...The serial port was developed long, long before PnP and has no way to signal the OS that a device has been added.

True, but that doesn't seem to explain this particular behavior. As the OP noted, Windows 98 detects the modem just fine, even when it is powered off at boot time. Certainly 98's PnP capabilities are no better in general than XP's.

Like I said, I've always chalked it up to some particular change in serial device handling.

 

[KF]

Looks like people have worked out a few ways to cope with this.

I go to the "Turn off Computer" button. Select "Standby." It goes into Standby. Turn on modem. Wiggle the mouse to resume.

If you look at the modem lights, you can see that XP does a check for the modem on the serial port anytime it resumes. Now if it would just do that anytime a modem request is made (and a modem has not already been detected) everything would be fine. It doesn't seem that hard. XP does a lot more difficult things than that on its own.

Right now I'm wondering what is going on. For an unconnected problem, I reinstalling XP (over itself.) So now when I 'm dialed up, the computer is continually uploading something. It uploaded 8 megabytes before I got concerned and hung up. Then I used a different dialer (Dialup Networking) and after about 5 minutes the computer starts uploading continuously again. It uploaded 11 megabytes in a half hour (28,800 connection.) With all this wonderful security that XP is supposed to have, is there some way to find out what its uploading? What files? I mean, its nice that I can tell how much is uploading, but WHAT is uploading. I didn't say to upload anything.

OK I started shutting down services in Task Manager and I hit one that stopped the uploading, but I'm still connected to Anandtech. Now to figure out what that service is, and if it is supposed to be running. I can't imagine what would want to upload that amount of data, or why. I'm still kind of ticked that I don't what it was uploading, and there is no way to find out. I think it would be extremely advantageous to security to know WHAT is being sent, and by WHAT, and to WHERE, so I would know whether to be worried or not.