[Techtalk] DSL modem

[Maria Blackmore]

On Mon, 16 Sep 2002, Glen Strom wrote:
> On Sun, 15 Sep 2002 20:49:35 -0700 Carla Schroder <carla at bratgrrl.com>
> wrote:
> > I am not happy with the performance of the Fujitsu modem that came
> > with my Verizon DSL account. I lose connectivity on a regular basis,
> > 3-4 times per week. Unplugging/ plugging in the modem restores it.

Could this be line problems rather than modem?  The second modem being
merely a coincidence?

> I'm using an Alcatel Speed Touch. No problems with it, and I've yet to
> hear anyone else complain about it.

I would recommend that you don't get the USB Alcatel Speed Touch, the one
that looks like a dried squashed frog, but is supposed to be a
stingray.They try to draw a little too much power from the USB port.  USB
is only supposed to supply 500 mA (0.5A) but the mutant squashed frog
stingray thing seems to regularly ask for more than 600 mA, maybe 700 mA.  
The house I live in uses one of these, it's plugged into a PCI USB adapter
to try to supply it with the power it requests, however if you plug
something else that is power hungry in at the same time the PCI USB card
simply turns itself off.

Something that used to happen (I don't know if it still does or if the
problem has been alleviated) is that in some cases where the speed touch
modem was plugged into the motherboard, and the user was transfering a
large quantity of data, the power consumption would reach the point where
the motherboard USB interface crowbarred and the whole machine switched
off, at this point there would be no data being transferred and the power 
consumption would drop to zero, resulting in the motherboard being
repowered.  This lead to reports of random rebooting whilst downloading
heavily.

I believe there is a PCI Speed Touch, which suffers no problems at all,
since its PCI

Fun :)


I hope you've gleaned something useful from my ramble :)

Maria