Modem and COM 5

[jcwagers]

Hello! I'm new to this forum and thought it might be nice to try to see if you guys and gals might be able to help me with a problem. I'm running Win98(not SE) and I have a USR 56K modem model 2976. It's a hardware modem and it was the cheapest one I could find. In windows...it is set to COM5. There are no jumpers on the modem to change the COM setting. Do any of you know how to change the COM setting?
My dad has the USR model 2977 and his is also running on COM 5. He's using WinME. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

jcwagers

 

[JW310]

First question I think should be asked here is if the modem works fine when it's on "COM5". If it works without causing any IRQ conflicts or any problems while using the modem, then I don't see why having the modem on COM5 would be a problem. Sounds like it's something in the Plug and Play (Plug and Pray?) that's causing it to be set on COM5.

If having it on COM5 is causing problems on the computer, and/or the modem doesn't want to work when it's on COM5, then try disabling one or more COM ports in the BIOS setup program and reinstalling the modem from within Windows. Doing that might put the modem on a "normal" COM port.

[Edit: Doing a quick search on Google.com for -US Robotics modem COM5- turned up a number of articles describing this issue. From the looks of it, having the modem default to COM5 is not uncommon. One thing I might suggest in this case is going to US Robotics' web page and seeing if you can find updated drivers for the modem, which might solve your problem of having it set on COM5.]

[Edit 2: Found a page on USR's webpage that somewhat explains this issue. Check out this link for information on this topic. Hope this helps you out.]

JW

 

[jcwagers]

Thank you very much!