Recommend a modem for me

Q_Ball

I can get one of three external modems at work and i was wondering if anyone could recommend one of these.

ELSA Microlink 56k Fun
ELSA Microlink 56k Internet
Creative Blaster 56k

I'm getting one tomorrow so any help tonight would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

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It's a 106 miles to Chicago. We've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses.

HIT IT!

Red Moose

Take whichever one is NOT a winmodem, if any.

Gerry

Take the modem with a serial port connection.

Q_Ball

Ok i know winmodem's are ****e but how do i know if it is one.

and whats the diference between a winmodem and a software modem?

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It's a 106 miles to Chicago. We've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses.

HIT IT!

Straker

Winmodem is a "software" modem.... ie. nearly all PCI card modems.

Just get any external serial/usb modem. They all basically have the same kit within them, and aslong as your choice is 56k V.90...you're fine.

phaxx

A winmodem is something that requires drivers to work. It's cheap, nasty, and offloads some of the processing it should do to the CPU. With the winmodem in the machine I'm at right now, when it disconnects, the machine freezes for up to a second, but with my proper modem (Diamond Supraexpress 56e, external, serial, 31337 ) that doesn't happen.

Winmodems, as a rule, don't work with anything but Windows. Drivers are slowly becoming available, but in my book, all you should need to do is plug the thing in, tell the machine it has a standard modem and it works, end of story.

USB modems, for the love of god avoid these!!

I remember seeing a big list of modems and if they're hardware or not, and if linux support exists. I'll dig around a bit and come back...

Found it,

http://www.idir.net/~gromitkc/20010604b.html

The creative blaster external seems OK

*shrug*

Hope I helped.

[This message has been edited by phaxx (edited 13-07-2001).]

Supercell

Good suggestion

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Take the modem with a serial port connection.
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Isn't that pretty much all a serial port is good for these days ... As i understand it, a winmodem sends most requests to the cpu for processing which means it lags the puter while its doing that...i imagine thats particularily noticable when one is doing stuff like gaming online. I'm not aware of any external modems that are software based, no doubt the learned Gerry can verify this. US Robotics asfaik seem to have the best rep for external modems. To be fair, winmodems are fine for most though, if you have a reasonably fast cpu, say 500mhz+ then for most things you wont notice any difference between it and a hardware setup. My trusty Lucent Winmodem, always connect me at 53.2k in win2k and download speeds are always excellent for a dialup connection, but i'm not a gamer..it depends on what you need it to do i suppose in the end.


[This message has been edited by Longfield (edited 13-07-2001).]

Q_Ball

Just bought a Microlink 56k Fun USB...

I'll have to change it tomorrow.

Seems to be working alright tho, why are USB modems bad???

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It's a 106 miles to Chicago. We've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses.

HIT IT!

Stephen

I'm not sure about this but I heard that USB modems give worse pings, due to the USB bus - that's just what I heard, it may be utter bollix

Supercell

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[This message has been edited by Longfield (edited 14-07-2001).]

-ADREN-

Yeah id grab the creative Blaster 56k one me self.. was going to buy that one as me new hard ware modem, only reason I didnt was because it wasnt a Us Robotics based chip set.

Stonemason

I have to agree with longfield most of the modem pci based modems arnt to bad combined with better processors especialy if you get the hybred type half hard half soft its the realy lazy winmodems that rely heavly on cpu power alone that are the worst.If people are really hardup go for a decent hybred intel or rockwell based ive used alot of these and only once had a problem from a k6/2 500 machine.At the end of the day its either £19int or £50ext for the sake of maybe 10 extra on your ping in cs that said id say with irish phone lines and choked up exchanges cause more of a problem.

Stone