Metropol

Hi all,

My new modem arrived through the post this morning as my broadband connection is activated tomorrow.

I put the CD into the drive, and up popped the menu. I proceeded to install and the window saying "Preparing your system for install". That took about a minute to complete.

Then it asked me to connect the USB cable to my computer, which I did. The BT installer then changed and said it was installing my drivers.

Meanwhile, XP also detects the modem, and tries to install itself ontop of the BT installer, so I cancel the XP installation and it tells me via a balloon in the taskbar that "Your hardware may not function properly".

The BT installer comes to the end, and then helpfully informs me that the modem drivers could not be installed, blah blah please call tech support.

So I did.

They told me to run "Doctor 105" from the Q:/ drive, and so I did. The Doctor program told me I needed to reboot my system, so I did.

Then once I had logged back in, and opened Dr105 again, it told me the same thing. Please reboot your system.

Just what the fuck is going on here? Why can't a simple fucking BT modem install properly? Tech support were useless, and from tomorrow I'm paying £30 a month for a service which I cannot access because BT have supplied me with crap hardware.

Is it me? Is it my computer? Is it the fact that I'm just unlucky?

For anyone who knows anything about this kinda thing, my system details are:

Windows XP Home Edition 2002
Version 5.1

128MB Ram
19GB free
DVD/CD-rom

Wassup with it all?

Do a System Restore as at yesterday.

Start the operation again.

Let Windows XP get on with what it suggests, when it suggests it, and answer any relevant BT installer questions AFTER XP has finished.

That's what you have to do with Freeserve/Wanadoo/Orange nowadays.

Meanwhile, XP also detects the modem, and tries to install itself ontop of the BT installer, so I cancel the XP installation and it tells me via a balloon in the taskbar that "Your hardware may not function properly".

The BT installer comes to the end, and then helpfully informs me that the modem drivers could not be installed, blah blah please call tech support.

So I did.

Perhaps those were the modem drivers trying to be installed, and you cancelled the process.

Repeat the modem installation process again, and don't cancel any boxes that say Windows is installing driver X - it is most likely that the installer is just a nice front-end wizard that automates the driver installation process, which can be a little laborious if done manually.

Just what the fuck is going on here? Why can't a simple fucking BT modem install properly? Tech support were useless, and from tomorrow I'm paying £30 a month for a service which I cannot access because BT have supplied me with crap hardware.

6 words. Get a router or ethernet modem.

Most PCs nowadays come with an ethernet card built in, and if you don't have one then they can be obtained for a few quid.

All you need to do if you have ethernet on board is (this was pretty much the process for me when I got my ethernet modem and as you can see it's relatively painless): -

Plug in ethernet cable and switch on modem.

Open up internet browser.

Type in router/modem admin page address and enter username/password as per manual.

Enter details for your connection, such as username/password.

Press connect button.

Wait around 10 seconds, and that's it. You can now use the internet.

None of this pissing around with installing drivers and ethernet is more reliable. Don't know why they never offered such modems as standard.

I much prefer Ethernet. It's quicker and far simpler to use. NTL Broadband's modems are both USB and Ethernet compatible, although NTL seems to prefer it's customers arsing about with USB.

I think I shall have to get a cheap ethernet modem tomorrow. I'll send this voyager thing back to BT.

I phoned Tech support again just now, and the bloke said that if I didn't have Windows XP Service Pack 2, then I need to get it. Apparently that's the reason why my hardware won't install.

Does anyone here have SP2 on CD which they could possibly post me?

I would download it, but on 56k, it would take a very very long time.

This probably isn't much help, but, when i installed BTBroadband( some considerable time ago now) i had no end of problems. I of course was beating myself up about it because i thought i was doing something wrong. After several hours of rebooting i decided to give my ISP a call.
It turns out that the installation c.d and voyager ADSL modem were incompatible.I had to go online to download the correct installation package. For the life of me i cannot remember where i accessed it otherwise i'd telll you.

In the time i've had broadband voyger i've had to regularly repair my ISP connectivity services and had to perform several system restores.

Jamez wrote:Just what the fuck is going on here? Why can't a simple fucking BT modem install properly? Tech support were useless, and from tomorrow I'm paying £30 a month for a service which I cannot access because BT have supplied me with crap hardware.

Well you don't have to use BT's hardware, as most ISP provided hardware is crap to the point where you're lucky if it works at all.

My ISP gave me a USB modem which, when it decided it didn't want to connectl, told me I don't have enough USB bandwidth and then refused to play at all until a reboot.

As previously stated, consider at least an Ethernet modem or a router. The router will give you true 24/7 broadband connectivity as it doesn't log off when you shut down so if you was to run a file server which you want to access from anywhere else on the internet, you can do so.

Windows XP Home Edition 2002
Version 5.1

128MB Ram

Some more of this stuff will be a worthy upgrade as well.

Neil Jones wrote:The router will give you true 24/7 broadband connectivity as it doesn't log off when you shut down so if you was to run a file server which you want to access from anywhere else on the internet, you can do so.

Of course, that would mean you'd be leaving your computer *on* anyway

Sput wrote:

Neil Jones wrote:The router will give you true 24/7 broadband connectivity as it doesn't log off when you shut down so if you was to run a file server which you want to access from anywhere else on the internet, you can do so.

Of course, that would mean you'd be leaving your computer *on* anyway

Yes but even if you don't run a file server you'll still have full 24/7 broadband connection anyway independent of the state of the computer(s) connected to it.