Modem Causing Busy Signal

J

jmcmike

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 26, 2002
Messages
506
OK, here's the story. I little while ago (1-2 months) we started noticing that our phone would sometimes be "off the hook" meaning that we would pick up the cordless or any other phone and get no tone until we hung it up and tried again.

After unplugging various phones is the house, I narrowed it down to the external modem (USR Sportster 56K) which had a fax machine hanging off of it. Well as I recall, things were pretty busy at the time so I just unplugged the whole lot from the wall and everything worked fine.

Fast forward to today, we pulled a few sportsters out of a location at work and since my modem is a work provided modem, I brought one of the pulled modems home to try it out.

Well now what happens is that if the modem is plugged into the wall, with or without the fax hanging off it and with or without the PC hooked up to it, it is causing a rapid busy tone within one minute of hooking it up. The busy signal does not go away until I unplug the modem from the wall.

Does anyone have any idea what may be going on?
 
Originally posted by lessthanjakejohn
Perhaps there is some fax software running?
Click to expand...
Thanks but no, that can't be it. The problem happens when the PC is not connected to the modem and neither is the fax machine. So basically all that is plugged into the modem is the power pack and the phone cord form the wall.
 
Hmm....Thats a new one hehe.

Only thing that comes to mind is ( unlikely ) A) the modem was not designed for america, or B) its trying to answer a call that never came through. (hangup detection isnt working) <-- more likely

Id call your phone company and see what they use for their hang up detect. Then check and make sure its compatable with your modem.

How long have you left it connected? Try for at least 1 or 2 min.
 
Some "enterprise" modems have a firmware that allows them to auto answer or auto dial - regardless of what is connected. I wasn't aware that USR made any of those modems, but its a possibility. See if there is some way to do a hard reset or something...
 
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