Spider's Modem Installation Guide for Beginners.
By Paul Spider Christie
(c) Euro-tech.co.uk 1999
THIS DOCUMENT SUPERCEEDS ANY PREVIOUS MANUAL.
1 - Is your modem internal (a card that fits inside the computer) or External (a box which sits by the computer)?
For internal jump to section A
For external jump to section D
SECTIONA: INTERNAL MODEM
2 - Is your card pnp (Plug and play) or NON-pnp (it has white switches on it)?
For non-pnp modems jump to section B
For pnp or PCI modems jump to section C
SECTIONB: INTERNAL NON-PNP MODEM
B1- configuring the hardware
When installing a modem into your system, an IRQ and a COM has to be assigned to it.
For best operation is recommended that you set the modem switches to:
COM2 - IRQ3 (which is normally switches 2,5 &8 ON)
B2 - IRQS? Also known as INTS!
Most of the devices in your computer have an interrupt (IRQ)! This is like a telephone hotline directly from the device to the processor, when the device need attention, it calls the processor via this hotline. Unfortunately there are only about 5 of these lines available and most of them are already in use by other devices (soundcard, network card..) that are already in the system. It is important that 2 devices do not have the same IRQ set otherwise one or both of them will be invisible to the system.
For your information the IRQs It is important that 2 devices do not have the same IRQ set otherwise one or both of them will be invisible to the system.
The are 2 COM chips already inside your computer and they are using:
COM1 - IRQ4 (3f8) - normally used for your mouse. COM2 - IRQ3 (2f8) - not normally in use. COM3 - IRQ4 (3e8) - not configured on most systems COM4 - IRQ3 (2e8) - not configured on most systems |
We need to use IRQ3 for the modem so COM2 needs to be disabled in the BIOS.
to do this:
- press 'DEL' whilst booting and your system will go into a menu called the CMOS.
(on some systems this is F1 or CTRL-ESC)
In this menu, select peripheral configuration (or similar)
In the peripheral config menu, ensure that
SERIAL PORT1 is set to COM1 (3F8)
SERIAL PORT2 is set to DISABLED
If you do change the settings to equal the settings above, please remember to press 'F10' to SAVE and exit.
B3 - Configuring Windows95/98
- start>settings>controlpanel>modems>remove all modems listed.
- click add>next>windows will search for your modem
windows should FIND a standard modem, at which point
- insert the supervoice CD, which contains the drivers, into the CD-ROM drive.
- click>change driver>have disk>d:\>next>56k external enhanced>finish.
NOTE: some modems drivers will be located in the ROCKWELL subfolder. which you can get to by pressing BROWSE
(goto SECTION E)
if windows does NOT FIND your modem, then you should confirm that COM2 is STILL DISABLED in your BIOS. Also check that COM" is listed in controlpanel>system>device manager, if not, add it by controlpanel>addnewhardware>next>nodetect>ports>standard>next>yes to restart.
SECTIONC: INTERNAL PNP MODEM
Follow section B-2 ONLY and return here.
C1 - Configuring Windows95/98
- start>settings>controlpanel>modems>remove all modems listed.
- check in controlpanel>addsoftware that ROCKWELL MODEM is not listed. (If it is then click 'remove'
THEN
Start>shutdown>restart the computer.
If windows detects new hardware during this new boot then:
- insert the supervoice CD, which contains the drivers, into the CD-ROM drive.
- click>change driver>have disk>d:\>next><MODEM NAME>finish.
(goto SECTION E)