help wth a new Modem

help wth a new Modem

[Adam Myrow]

I just replaced my ancient 33.6K Modem with a 56K PCI modem.  It's made by 
somebody called Smartlink.  Everything I have read indicates it's Linux 
compatible.  It even has a Linux folder on the CD with a program to set it 
up for you.  Of course, the program is rather old and required that I 
installed libc5 just to make it run.  The Modem apparently has a chip set 
made by a company in Taiwan called Topic.  It is a TP560 chip set.  Anyway, 
I ran the program after getting things set up, and it just said "Topic PCI 
Modem not found." I went into Windows, which detected and installed the 
modem fine.  It put it on Com5 however.  Also, it won't connect any faster 
than 26,400 BPS.  Anyway, I downloaded some instructions for manually 
configuring it under Linux.  Wouldn't you know that the instructions were 
in a Winzip self-extractor as a MS Word Doc?  Something is wrong with this 
picture!  So, the instructions say to look at /proc/pci and to type a 
"setserial" line to set up a serial port to match the IRQ and I/O range of 
the modem.  I tried this, and still nothing.  Here is the output from 
"lspci -v" as well as the contents of /proc/ioports and /proc/pci.  I think 
the big clue is the "disabled" in the lspci output, but I don't know what 
to do about it.  Has anybody else dealt with these modems and gotten one to 
work?  I really believe it to be a hardware modem because Windows shows the 
message "no driver files are required or have been loaded for this device."

Here is the output from "lspci -v."

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 440FX - 82441FX PMC [Natoma] (rev 02)
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32

00:01.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82371SB PIIX3 ISA [Natoma/Triton II] 
(rev 01)
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0

00:01.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82371SB PIIX3 IDE [Natoma/Triton 
II] (prog-if 80 [Master])
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32
	I/O ports at fcf0 [size=16]

00:13.0 Communication controller: TOPIC SEMICONDUCTOR Corp: Unknown device 0000
	Subsystem: TOPIC SEMICONDUCTOR Corp: Unknown device 0000
	Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 11
	I/O ports at fce8 [disabled] [size=8]

00:14.0 VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc. 86c325 [ViRGE] (rev 05) (prog-if 
00 [VGA])
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 9
	Memory at f8000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64M]
	Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=64K]

Here is the contents of /proc/interrupts.


            CPU0
   0:      21382          XT-PIC  timer
   1:        523          XT-PIC  keyboard
   2:          0          XT-PIC  cascade
   3:        677          XT-PIC  serial
   5:          7          XT-PIC  sym53c416
   8:          1          XT-PIC  rtc
  10:          1          XT-PIC  soundblaster
  14:       1751          XT-PIC  ide0
  15:          3          XT-PIC  ide1
NMI:          0
LOC:      21345
ERR:          0

Lastly, here is the contents of /proc/ioports.

0000-001f : dma1
0020-003f : pic1
0040-005f : timer
0060-006f : keyboard
0070-007f : rtc
0080-008f : dma page reg
00a0-00bf : pic2
00c0-00df : dma2
00f0-00ff : fpu
0170-0177 : ide1
01f0-01f7 : ide0
0213-0213 : isapnp read
0220-023f : sym53c416
0240-024f : soundblaster
02f8-02ff : serial(auto)
0300-0303 : MPU-401 UART
0376-0376 : ide1
0378-037a : parport0
037b-037f : parport0
03c0-03df : vga+
03f6-03f6 : ide0
03f8-03ff : bns
0620-0623 : sound driver (AWE32)
0a20-0a23 : sound driver (AWE32)
0a79-0a79 : isapnp write
0cf8-0cff : PCI conf1
0e20-0e23 : sound driver (AWE32)
fce8-fcef : PCI device 151f:0000 (TOPIC SEMICONDUCTOR Corp)
fcf0-fcff : Intel Corp. 82371SB PIIX3 IDE [Natoma/Triton II]
   fcf0-fcf7 : ide0
   fcf8-fcff : ide1

Any suggestions are welcome as to how to get this modem up and running 
under Linux!

Re: help wth a new Modem

[Kirk Wood]

I would expect you need a module loaded for this to work. But if not, then
you should use setserial to IRQ 11 and IO FCE8. This is way different then
the "standard" but welcome to PCI which has no choice but to leave the
previously mentioned standard.

It is completely normaly for a PnP device to be disabled if there is no
support for it in the OS. That keeps things going along much smoother.

Finally I would like to point out that it makes perfect sense for the
linux documentation to be in a Word document that has been zipped. There
is a reason that some modems cost more then others. US Robotics makes a
PCI modem that works in Linux. The directory with information gives clear
instructions as to how to install it. But my first guess is that it costs
double what you paid.

=======
Kirk Wood
Cpt.Kirk@1tree.net

Nowlan's Theory:
        He who hesitates is not only lost, but several miles from
        the next freeway exit.

Re: help wth a new Modem

[Toby Fisher]

On Tue, 5 Mar 2002, Kirk Wood wrote:

<snip>

> Finally I would like to point out that it makes perfect sense for
the
> linux documentation to be in a Word document that has been zipped. There
> is a reason that some modems cost more then others. US Robotics makes a
> PCI modem that works in Linux. The directory with information gives clear
> instructions as to how to install it. But my first guess is that it costs
> double what you paid.

But if you want to cut costs, my current modem is a Lucent winmodem,
costing around #20 sterling (Around $27-28 U.S. at current exchange
rates).  Ok, so I had to download the ltmodems package, but it works like
a dream, or at least it would if I weren't so far from the exchange!
*smile*  Oh yes, and although nobody's using it yet, it claims to be V.92
ready.

Cheers.
-- 
Toby Fisher	Email: toby@g0ucu.freeserve.co.uk
Tel.: +44(0)1480 417272	Mobile: +44(0)7974 363239
ICQ: #61744808