No Dial Tone

6ix

Someone I know is using dial up, and in the last couple of days they've been having a problem.

Basically, when the phoneline is plugged into the back of their computer, they lose all dial tone within the house. Once they plug the line out of the back of the computer, the phoneline comes back fine.

They thought it was the computer, but tried a laptop, and it gave the same problem. It's strange, as the PC/Laptop don't even need to be turned on. As soon as the phone cable hits the back of the computer, the dial tone ceases to be throughout the house.

Anyone have any experience of this, or know what it might be?

Ruu_Old

Just use a splitter at the main phone socket, put telephone into one and the line from the splitter to PC in the other. That is what I used to do anyway.

jd

Have you tried more than 1 cable?

6ix

Yeah they have. If they plug in a phone into the same socket they have no problems, but once they plug a modem in, all dial tone within the house goes dead. The modem doesnt even have to be turned on. It's strange. At first they thought it was the specific modem, but they've tried others - same problem.

JohnnieM

did it work before and then just stop... what kind of pc is it?was it bought in pc world by any chance?

JohnnieM

Could try turning around the phone cable..i.e. the end thats in the wall plug in the pc and vise versa...some english spec machines phones etc use the outer pair of the rj11 we use the center.. could just be that the cable was reversed by accident...worth a shot

6ix

Cheers. Will pass that on if when I see the guy again. I just happened to be there when the problem occured, not sure if he got it fixed since.