> I just got off the phone with a senior tech person at USR. I called them
> due to my continued troubles with the newer USR 33.6 Sportsters and
> Livingston PM2E30s. The tech told me that is was the Livingston code,
> which tries to force the incoming modem and the one on the port to
> negotiate at the vfc protocol and speed. The newer 33.6 modems do not
> have vfc capabilities and they have been working with Livingston for
> approx. 4 months on getting the ComOS of the Livingston boxes changed to
> have the older 28.8's and the 33.6 codes in them.
Huh?? ComOS has no way of forcing it into different modes unless you give
it a special init string to give to the modem.
> This guy may have been full of it, but he sure seemed convincing.
>
> So, I guess it has nothing to do with the different power supplies of
> the newer modems. I am not trying to start a war on this channel (please
> keep you hate mail of USRs products to yourself), I am just hoping to
> get this issue resolved.
The way I have been able to barely keep most of my Sportsters running is
to keep the room extra cool (65-70 degrees 'F') and keep them a few inches
away from eachother at least.
* The real problem is in the Sportsters, when they switched from 28.8k
(which worked FLAWLESSLY and have for years for me) to the 33.6k's they
started using different power supplies, and they totally redesigned the
internals with a faster clock and more heat producting components, etc.
I have seen many many many problems with the design and overheating at
home as well as in dial-in pools. It has nothing to do with the
Portmaster. I also keep the port rates at 38.4k instead of 115.2k like my
Cardinals. That has kept a lot of them from losing their brains also. I
have had a large failure rate anyway though and am phasing them out... I
wonder if anyone will buy them, the ones I still have work pretty well. I
even have 5 or so of the true 28.8k models which have NEVER had a problem.
The ComOS version has had no impact on the performance, or lack thereof,
of the Sportsters.
*sigh*
- Steve
- Systems Manager
- Community Internet Access, Inc.
- Gallup and Grants, New Mexico