[wplug] Serial killer

[Rob Prowel]

not much to suggest without actually going there and
using my trusty breakout box to verify communications
with the modem.

Hopefully they're not committing the all too common
sacrilige of using a two or three wire modem cable and
then expecting it to work properly.  It's a real
(store bought) modem (DTE to DCE) cable, right?

Also, bypass kppd and use seyon to communicate
directly with the modem while diagnosing.  Try the
"ATI" or equivalent modem commands to get the modem to
dump its status back to you.


--- Vance Kochenderfer <vkochend at nyx.net> wrote:
> My parents have been having trouble with their
> external serial modem.
> It reportedly worked fine last Friday, but when they
> went to go online
> Saturday morning, no go.  I've spent a bunch of time
> with them on the
> phone (from a couple hundred miles away) trying to
> diagnose the trouble,
> but have hit a brick wall.  They're using Mandrake
> 10.1 (kernel 2.6.8).
> 
> The modem simply won't respond to commands.  KPPP
> has a nifty "Query
> Modem" function that sends a series of ATI commands
> to the modem.
> This causes the modem lights to flicker, but no
> response comes back.
> Trying an ATZ or any other AT command in a terminal
> likewise gets no
> reply.  I suspected the modem could have died, but I
> had them put on
> an old modem I had left at their house, and we get
> the same results.
> 
> My next suspicion was a serial port problem, but
> dmesg and a
> setserial -a /dev/ttyS0 both show normal values. 
> Permissions on
> /dev/ttyS0 are correct.  There's only one serial
> port, so I know
> it's the right device.  It's properly enabled in the
> BIOS.
> 
> Anyone have any ideas for further diagnosis I can do
> remotely (with
> non-computer literate people on the other end)?  Or
> alternatively, if
> it turns out the serial port is bad, anyone have a
> PCI modem that
> works under Linux they'd like to unload?  Thanks a
> bunch.
> 
> Vance Kochenderfer        |  "Get me out of these
> ropes and into a
> vkochend at nyx.net          |   good belt of Scotch"  
>  -Nick Danger
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> wplug at wplug.org
> http://www.wplug.org/mailman/listinfo/wplug
> 

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