What is the best modem?

[Dowding]

Lynx, you diamond, you.  

I'm gonna find out what exactly the card in my machine is and it will be a couple of weeks before I decide what I'm going to do. I'll email you then, pal.

Obviously I'd pay for packaging and posting and give you some extra.  

<edit>

Looks like my card will suffice - it's an SMC 1208T (PCI) and according to their site and reviews on the Net, it is 10 Base-T.

Thanks for the offer though! If it turns out to be crap, I'll drop you a line.  

[This message has been edited by Dowding (edited 02-15-2001).]

[Frosty1]

It's clearly obvious that my modem is the *best* modem.   I tweaked it a few weeks ago and I download at an average of 400-500k/sec. Hate me all you want.  

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===>Frosty
====>Exposure2k.com
=====>Frosty@exposure2k.com

[popeye]

I live in a rural area, and have a crummy phone line that gets 26.4K on a good day, and often less.  I'm using a USR 28.8 Sportster internal modem.

Any chance that a different modem would get better performace from my crummy phone line?

I notice that one of the USR modems has a "game mode", what's up with that?

[Ode]

Popeye, Ive had 3 different 56K modems in this machine, all 3 logged in at different speeds to the same isp. So yes, you might get better connects w/ better hardware.The best I have used is 3coms ISA fax modem.the range was 36k to 49,333 being the best.We did test two of the 3 on another isp and found one being better, however the 3com won  hands down..

[popeye]

Thanks Ode,

I'm going to try a USR Courier Everything Everywhere Super Extra Wonderful, to see if it can make my connect more reliable.

[DaGuvna]

I'm due to be getting the computer in my room connected to the net soon, and so I've been reading up on modems.

All of the magazines I've read reckon that the external Diamond Supra Max USB is the best to use.  I don't know whether that's based upon just browsing or gaming, but the latter is more likely, what with it being a gaming mag and that!

I never realised that the modem hardware has such and effect on your connection, I thought they were all practically identical.
We got our internal PCI ZOOM 56K modem for £50, and get solid connections of 49333 bps down a regular phone like with BT Anytime.  I get download speeds of up to 6 K/s!!! Thats almost as fast as my mate gets with ISDN!

[Lephturn]

A USB modem is NOT the way to go.

Your download speed is pretty much irrelevant for playing a game like Aces high.  Check this article out:  http://users.andara.com/~sconrad/connection.htm

If you are buying a new modem, your best bet is a US Robotics Courier external.  It's a bit expensive, but there are other slightly cheaper USR external modems on the market.  A PCI modem would be your second best choice.  USB is the worst possible choice for gaming.  The only thing you want connected via USB is your control devices.  

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Sean "Lephturn" Conrad - Aces High Chief Trainer

A proud member of the mighty Flying Pigs
http://www.flyingpigs.com

Check out Lephturn's Aerodrome for AH articles and training info!

[Replicant]

DaGuvna, see my earlier post

Nexx

[-lynx-]

Just to add to the confusion I guess:

Diamond Supra PCI internal was the best modem I've ever had. I had solid connects, fast downloads and no problem whatsoever for just under 30 quid. Then I read about winmodems being the source of all evil and the opportunity came along to swap it for highly recommended Hayes Accura internal thing (full blown modem, not using CPU - blah-blah-blah...).

Well - connection is fractionally slower (so are downloads), it's stable... Err...

Was it worth extra 40 quid? Definitely not. Absolute waste of money.

External modem is better? How? Your ISA/PCI thing is sitting right on the data bus seeping the power of the mobo and feeding the data straight in and out. Any external is the same inside as internal with the only differences being a separate box, blinking lights (yawn), and a power source. And, of course, few more cables like you don't have enough of them. And let’s not forget an extra cost too.

I disabled both serial ports in BIOS cuz there's absolutely no need for them to be there - it's a legacy from good ol' DOS days. Now I have (gulp) spare (!!!) IRQ's and no device conflicts.

The worst modem I've ever had was made by USR. It was a winmodem that windows refuse to detect, drivers kept crashing and god forbid if you got it working you dare change any settings... After 6 months of hell I just put it in the bin and swore never to touch USR stuff again.

YMMV

p.s. ISDN (in the UK) - what a joke! My gf is on this crap paying a small fortune and downloading at 6-6.5K tops. Me and my boring phoneline do it at 5.5-6K

I guess It Still Does Nothing is still a pretty good description for it .

[Skuzzy]

Winmodems of any kind are junk.

Don't let the USR Winmodem be confused with the Courier.  The USR Courier is about as close to the quality of modem an ISP would use.
The older Diamond modem (when they were Rockwell based) were good products, but they have since gone downhill as they switched to the Lucent part.

External versus internal:
The external modems have an advantage over internal modems as they use the onboard UART of your computer system, which is tied directly to the CPU bus.
The built-in UART drivers are incredibly stable, and so is the hardware.

Internal modems still have a UART they process everything through, which may or may not be as good as the one on your motherboard.  From a performance aspect, there is no difference from a PCI based modem versus an external modem.
As a matter of fact, bus and EMI noise can slow down an internal PCI modem versus an external modem.

In the U.S, external modems must meet Class B FCC requirements, which requires shielding.  Internal modems only have to meet Class A FCC requirements, which are a lot easier to do.

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Roy "Skuzzy" Neese
President, AppLink Corp.
http://www.applink.net
skuzzy@applink.net

[Eagler]

another benefit of an external modem are the status lights and the fact you can power cycle it if it gets hung up without having to reboot your computer.

but the best "modem" has a coaxial input and a RJ45 output. Mine is made by Motorola and has a Road Runner on the front...

beep, beep..  

Eagler