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Modem driver issue

F

famicomaster2

Experienced Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2017
Messages
384
Location
Southeastern US
Hello, I've just yesterday installed Windows Server 2003 and nothing else but a NIC driver and a modem driver.
The modems are internal PCI Lucent 1456VQH-T2s. I have four.

If I install any one of the four modems in any of the six available PCI slots, the modem appears in Device Manager and just works. All four modems can answer and originate data calls without issue.
If I install a second modem in any slot, only one of the two will work. One will operate as normal, answering and originating calls just fine, but the other will display the message "The device cannot start (code 10)" in Device Manager. If I install all four modems, in any arrangement of slots, only one modem ever works. The rest all show this code 10 message.

Reading around, there are no sane answers to this problem that I could find. Some people say to reinstall Windows, but this is a fresh install, completely unused. I haven't even installed a video driver yet.
Some say to update drivers, I'm already running the latest drivers.
Some say hardware failure, I've individually tested all four cards to be functional.
Some say resource conflict. With only two modems, no matter what resource allocation I give the working modem, the second modem never works.
Some say reinstall drivers. I've done this three times and even rolled back to the original Windows driver to no avail.

I've had one person suggest that since these are HCF modems, the driver may simply not support multiple devices, but I was under the impression that Windows ran multiple copies of the driver for multiple devices. This thought could, of course, be wrong. I am not opposed to the idea of replacing these HCF modems with real hardware modems, but I have had difficulty finding reliable information on what PCI modems are hardware vs which are HCF or HSP, and of course what is supported by Server 2003.

I'm at my wit's end here, and so I come seeking advice. Any advice on fixing this issue is appreciated.
 
HCF/Softmodems were never marketed on the expectation you would have more than one in a computer. They were always budget garbage that OEM's stuffed in a prebuilt system to say it came with a 56K modem because everything was being done by the CPU and famously if you were a power-user doing a lot of things and keeping the CPU busy, your connection speed suffered.

An Agere softmodem on a 333mhz windows 98 system while trying to play Counter Strike in software rendering was lining you up for horrific game lag when things got busy. I'm old enough to remember when that nonsense was even possible.

My money is on both the driver and Windows not being happy that multiple softmodems are present and it's a bit of both it doesn't know what to do and the resources are conflicting because it doesn't know how to address them separately. You poll the modem and whoever wins the arbitration decides to work.
If you plan to run multiple modems you need hardware modems. They're fully self-contained to the card and typically if you cannot get the exact driver that XP/2K3 wants you just tell Windows it's a very fast serial port because they are setup to just face the PCI bus looking like a virtual COM port and not to worry about what might be connected to that because it's up to the software to assume a modem's attached to it. The easiest way to identify a hardware modem is the main chipset (or the dedicated DSP if there's a PCI bridge onboard) has somewhere close a small quantity of SRAM and either a ROM or flash memory because there's a DSP handling the modem instead of the PC. Between the higher component count and actually having the hardware onboard to not suck this is why they were so much more expensive. Personally I'm pretty loyal to 3Com/US Robotics PCI modems because they used to show up a lot in Ewaste.
3com.jpg

In comparison, the Agere chipset softmodem turds you could see in the bin from across the warehouse because they had the lone, ugly green RJ11 jack.
 
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It may be possible to check the hardware details from device manager. I think looking up the hardware ID is the right one. If the hardware IDs on multiple cards are the same, only one card would be detected. PnP management is a challenge to work out.
 
NeXT said:
HCF/Softmodems were never marketed on the expectation you would have more than one in a computer. They were always budget garbage that OEM's stuffed in a prebuilt system to say it came with a 56K modem because everything was being done by the CPU and famously if you were a power-user doing a lot of things and keeping the CPU busy, your connection speed suffered.
Click to expand...
Yes, I am aware. However, there is a difference between HCF and HSP.
HSP (Host Signal Processing) is as you say, just a PCB with a phone jack. The CPU is driving every part of the modem, including signal processing as the name implies. These are the famous "Winmodems" and are fully software driven. Sometimes I see these calls HSF (Host Signal Function) but there is no difference other than the name.
HCF (Host Control Function) modems like these still have a real hardware DSP, but the microcontroller (which is what responds to the Hayes AT commands) is implemented in software on the CPU. In theory, this is a mostly harmless cost reduction, and once you are connected it should be safe for the emulated 8051 or whatever to go to sleep and stop wasting resources. At least, on paper. Whether or not the drivers actually do this is another story.

As such, an HCF modem (like these Lucent modems) are more like "hybrid" modems, which is why I chose them initially. I have a bin of about a hundred PCI modems, and I wanted matching modems (so I would only need one driver) and I didn't want HSP. So ignored the probably 30 or 40 Agere Pinballs and went for Lucents.

I'm actually not playing games, this is just a middleman machine which will be present solely to network other machines. An analog router, if you will, so performance is not strictly necessary. I think even a Pentium 4HT @ 2.8GHz should have little trouble keeping up with six modems, even if they were all HSP with wonky drivers. The machine is set up to do nothing but answer modem calls and route their network traffic.
NeXT said:
My money is on both the driver and Windows not being happy that multiple softmodems are present and it's a bit of both it doesn't know what to do and the resources are conflicting because it doesn't know how to address them separately. You poll the modem and whoever wins the arbitration decides to work.
Click to expand...
Sadly, I agree, this is likely. I was hoping maybe this was just some known bug in Server 2003 and that it would be an easy fix, but I guess not.
NeXT said:
If you plan to run multiple modems you need hardware modems. They're fully self-contained to the card and typically if you cannot get the exact driver that XP/2K3 wants you just tell Windows it's a very fast serial port because they are setup to just face the PCI bus looking like a virtual COM port and not to worry about what might be connected to that because it's up to the software to assume a modem's attached to it. The easiest way to identify a hardware modem is the main chipset (or the dedicated DSP if there's a PCI bridge onboard) has somewhere close a small quantity of SRAM and either a ROM or flash memory because there's a DSP handling the modem instead of the PC. Between the higher component count and actually having the hardware onboard to not suck this is why they were so much more expensive. Personally I'm pretty loyal to 3Com/US Robotics PCI modems because they used to show up a lot in Ewaste.
Click to expand...
As mentioned above, these Lucent modems actually have a DSP on board, according to the datasheet, which is what told me they weren't HSP. Is SRAM a good way to be sure that a modem is hardware? Do you know of any model numbers off the top of your head that I can use to get multiple of the same modem, hardware modems, on eBay?

krebizfan said:
It may be possible to check the hardware details from device manager. I think looking up the hardware ID is the right one. If the hardware IDs on multiple cards are the same, only one card would be detected. PnP management is a challenge to work out.
Click to expand...
The hardware ID like VEN&DEV or something else? If you're thinking more like a serial number or something specifically identifying, is there a way to change that so that the cards might show up seprarately? The computer does detect all the modems and shows them all in device manager, but just shows that all but one are nonfunctional.
 
Changing the vendorId or deviceId would turn it into a different type of card, so the drivers would no longer feel responsible at all. Bad idea.

The problem here are most likely resource assignments (memory addresses, I/O addresses and IRQs), which can be changed in Device Manager. Most devices only support a few configurations, and you just may have exhausted the available choices.

Of course, there is also a good chance that multiple driver instances stomp on each other, even if Windows is able to load multiple instances correctly.
 
Some drivers were lazy and didn't recognize multiple versions of the same card. A related card at a higher price would have a driver that would support multiple cards.
 
Svenska said:
Changing the vendorId or deviceId would turn it into a different type of card, so the drivers would no longer feel responsible at all. Bad idea.

The problem here are most likely resource assignments (memory addresses, I/O addresses and IRQs), which can be changed in Device Manager. Most devices only support a few configurations, and you just may have exhausted the available choices.

Of course, there is also a good chance that multiple driver instances stomp on each other, even if Windows is able to load multiple instances correctly.
Click to expand...
The only option to change in Device Manager is the serial port, which gives me the option of COM3 all the way to like, COM63 or something. I tried putting it way in the middle of nowhere at 16 to see if another one would just work, but alas, this made no difference.

krebizfan said:
Some drivers were lazy and didn't recognize multiple versions of the same card. A related card at a higher price would have a driver that would support multiple cards.
Click to expand...
Any recommendations for a better card? As long as I can get a couple of them I'm happy.
 
famicomaster2 said:
Any recommendations for a better card? As long as I can get a couple of them I'm happy.
Click to expand...
I went looking for server modems and can't find any references for them. I know they existed; work had a system with 4 lines going into it for needs that were too modest to have a full hardware bank.

You might be able to have several different models of internal modems at the same time. Or consider bunches of external modems. Turbocom back in the Win 3 era had a driver that supported 9 COMM ports and was also offered alongside a 6 port serial card. Not sure what was available after that.
 
krebizfan said:
I went looking for server modems and can't find any references for them. I know they existed; work had a system with 4 lines going into it for needs that were too modest to have a full hardware bank.

You might be able to have several different models of internal modems at the same time. Or consider bunches of external modems. Turbocom back in the Win 3 era had a driver that supported 9 COMM ports and was also offered alongside a 6 port serial card. Not sure what was available after that.
Click to expand...
Sadly, finding external modems is a lot more difficult than it used to be! I used to have a big stack of them, and people used to throw them out or offer them to me all the time. It seems they've finally all been binned.
 
jafir said:
There were companies making multiple modems on one pci card, for example brooktrout.

www.ebay.com

Brooktrout 802-103-10E 8 Port Fax Card | eBay

You Are Buying 1 Used Working Brooktrout 802-103-10E. Press to translate. Loop Start Interface Board - PCI. 8 Port Fax Card. 6 channel PCI fax card – MVIP bus.
www.ebay.com
Click to expand...
I've seen those, yeah. How would I go about using these? Do they just appear to Windows as multiple standard modems? How would I actually connect these to a telco line, I don't see any jacks on it. That specific one says fax only, is that true or can this generate v.34 or something as well?
 
I guess that one wasn’t a good example. Maybe it had a breakout cable? I’ve got a multi modem board that just has lots of RJ11 ports. But I’ve never tested it since I saved it from going into the trash at a previous employer.

This one has 4 modems, but could have had a daughter board with 4 more:

IMG_6353.jpeg
IMG_6354.jpeg

I’m sure we only used them for fax, but I don’t know if that is a limitation.

I had another one but I already have it away.


Edit: I found the manual on archive dot org. Seems to indicate that it isn’t just for faxes.
archive.org

Multi-Tech Systems Computer Hardware ISI5634PCI/4/8 User Guide : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

archive.org
 
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I see. I will look further into those which might work under Server 2003.

Right now, the machine is working with 6 different modems, which annoys me somewhat that they're not all the same.
 
In the past, different modem types on different phone lines was an advantage, as it allowed the caller to choose the best match for their own modem. This was especially with proprietary protocols (PEP <-> V.32, K56flex <-> V.90, etc.)

So don't be too annoyed. It's good for your customers. 🙃
 
Ah, see, I'm limited to v.34bis because these are all currently analog modems on analog lines. I doubt most people will even see the full throughput over VoIP anyways.
 
You need a really good internet connection (very low jitter and delay) to get reliable connections above 9600 bps. Even slight hickups may make anything above 1200 bps through SIP impossible.

This also applies if your ISP changed to VoIP internally, as is done in most of Europe. Even if you still have a perfectly fine POTS phone line in your home, faster modem connection may not work reliable. So... don't be sad.
 
I see, so it'll likely be unreliable even with a home Asterisk server and direct IP connections?

Some users in a community I manage had expressed interest in a way to connect over dial-up, and while lots of people have modems and most of the people interested have ATAs, very few of them have the means to set up a server.

I wound up finding a Dialogic Diva PRI card on eBay for very cheap, which the datasheet says it can do full v.90 and K56Flex over compatible lines. I was hoping to use some of the ISDN BRI hardware I have, but my Adtran TA924e only has a T1 / PRI connection, and hardware to turn that into BRI lines is prohibitively expensive.

Interestingly, where I live now has a single real copper phone line, which I have successfully connected sustained about 48K down/33.6K up with in the past. Our local telco seems to either configure their hardware properly or has older hardware still. Sadly, its a single line, and while its only 12 bucks a month, it'd cost me an awful lot to order a second line, or even more for the T1 they still offer.
 
famicomaster2 said:
I see, so it'll likely be unreliable even with a home Asterisk server and direct IP connections?
Click to expand...
Within your home network, it should be very reliable if configured correctly; variable packet delay isn't a problem in such a setting.

I've tried a few connections from Sweden (SIP, using an ATA and a generic V.90 Rockwell modem) to a BBS in Germany (through a GSM adapter and a Zyxel modem), and we had a stable 9.6 kbps link for a few hours. Other modems had trouble connecting (or sustaining) more than 1200 bps.

Worst case was an Aztech card with integrated 14.4 kbps modem: It really did not want to connect, but as soon as it got some form of link, both sides saw huge amounts of binary garbage (which crashed the BBS software) before the connection dropped. Happened every time and we still don't know what's going on there.
 
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