External modem slow unless CPU stressed

[Brett16]

Hi all,

I've a weird problem with one of my machines. I hooked up a USR 56K external modem that was working fine on a 1GHz system to a 2.26GHz system (ASUS P4B533 mobo) and it's terribly slow unless the CPU is under stress (>20% or so). When the computer is idle, I get about 1-1.5kbps, but if I run a program that actually takes up CPU time, I get the normal 4-5kbps. It's a Windows 2000 system, and I've tried different COM ports, IRQs, etc. and have been unable to figure out a solution, other than running a background task that takes up about 25% CPU.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Rav3n]

I would first suggest updating the drivers you have. Second, maybe its something with the dialup service you are using. Play with the FIFO buffer controls - there are two slides in the modem properties (on a mac right now, otherwise I would help you locate what I am talking about). If you have tried that stuff, then I have no clue...

 

[Brett16]

I have tried different drivers (Standard Modem, and a couple different USR ones), and have also updated the modem's flash ROM. The problem occurs with two different dialup services, and I did play with the FIFO buffers a bit last week (that was my first guess) to no avail. I've never seen such a thing. ;-)

I appreciate the input. Perhaps I'll dig up an internal PCI modem and see if that would work better.