To determine what you have Click My Computer Control Panel Modem You should see the following on the right: Keep in mind you may have a different modem than mine. The listed modem will be the model that you have. Click Diagnostic tab
You should see the following on the right: This screen will show you the com ports, and also show you which com port that is assigned to your modem. Click on the More Info tab in the middle of the box
The more info tab will tell you the following: Port Interrupt Address Uart Highest speed Possible Command ATI4 will normally tell you the manufacturer of your modem and speed capability. If there are any err's in this box that usually means that there is a problem with the modem. If the Uart isn't 16550 then you won't be able to connect at 56k. This will require either a modem upgrade or system upgrade. (Contact your modem manufacturer to determine what spec. ie... V.34....V.90 ...your modem is compliant with.)

If you have a properly installed the modem .inf file, you normally don't need any initialization string or extra settings when using DUNS (dial-up-networking) - the .inf file determines the init string which - when everything works right - gives you the best connection possible. But, it doesn't always work that way, and sometimes you can improve your connection by adding extra settings (additional initialization string). Many command formats are specific to different modem chipsets. Below the screenshot showing where you go to add extra settings are some 56k/V.34-related commands for various modem chipsets. These commands can be used to enable or disable 56k (V.90, x2, K56Flex, or no-56k- V.34), error correction and compression protocols (V.42/MNP). In some cases (especially if your connection is unstable or nearly useless), disabling 56k on your modem - forcing a V.34 connect - will result in improved connectivity and throughput. The following screen shoots will show you where to got to enter these extra settings. Some of these settings I have test and some of them I haven't. If your modem won't function after trying these, delete the extra setting and reboot. Your modem should then function as before. Then you can try a different setting. If you are wondering why all of the commands below are for disable instead of enable, there is a good reason for this . Modems by default will always try to negotiate the best connection they can. So they turn everything on and go for it. Unfortunately this sometimes cause problems. Therefore disabling certain protocals can in fact increase your connect speed or at least allow you to connect consistantly. Take special care when giving your modem extra commands. If the commands are not for the exact chipset you have they may or may not work. If they don't work, your modem will probably not respond properly to your system. If this happens, you will have to go remove the commands and restart your system. Then try different ones until you find one that works. In most cases if you are connecting slowly like 24,000 bps then disabling Kflex or x2 will speed things up. If you can't connect at all, then slowing the modem down by disabling v.90 & kflex or x2 might help. Enter in the extra settings box what follows the ~ symbol. Don't enter the ~ symbol itself. I will add to these when get them. If you find something that works or have info about other chipsets let me know. I'll make sure they get posted here. Tcraig Sportster/USR Disable x2 ~ S32=34 Disable v.42 ~ S15=128 Disable V.90 ~ S32=66 Disable V.90 & x2 ~S32=98 Courier Disable x2 ~S58=1 Disable v.42 ~S27=32 Disable V.90 ~S58=32 Disable V.90 & x2 ~ S58=33 Cirrus MD56xx Disable x2 ~ +MS=V90,0 Disable v.42 ~+ES=4, 4, 6 %C1 Disable V.90 ~+MS=X2,0 Disable V.90 & x2 ~+MS=V34,1,0,33600 ESS / Teledrive Disable x2 ~ +MS=17,0 Disable v.42 ~\N5 Disable V.90 ~ +MS=12,0 Disable V.90 & x2 ~+MS=12,0 Rockwell Dual Disable KFlex +MS=12 Disable V90 +MS=56 Disable V90&Flex +MS=11 Disable v.42 &Q6 Rockwell HCF & Soft56 Disable KFlex +MS=V90,0 Disable V90 +MS=K56,0 Disable V90&Flex +MS=V34 Disable v.42 +ES=1,0,1; If the above commands seem to lock the modem try them with AT in front of the above: Example.. AT+MS=V34 Lucent (Zoom Fax modems) Disable KFlex s38=0 Disable V90 s109=0 Disable V90&Flex s38=0s109=0 I found that my Usb 56k Zoom modem had faster through put by disabling the flex protocal. I logged on slower but everything was much faster. Lucent LT Disable KFlex s38=0 Disable V90 -v90=0 Disable V90&Flex s38=0-v90=0 Disable v.42 \n2 Lucent Venus Disable KFlex ~s109=2 Disable V90 ~s109=0 Disable V90&Flex ~s38=0 Disable v.42 ~\n2 PCTel HSP Disable KFlex~ n0s37=14 Disable V90 ~n0s37=13 Disable V90&Flex ~n0s37=12 Disable v.42 ~* A * means I don't know. Motorola SM56 Disable KFlex~ *MM15 Disable V90 ~*MM13 Disable V90&Flex ~ *MM12 Disable v.42 ~ The following is a list of computers and extra settings that helped them to connect more reliably. Compaq Presario 4910 56k-DF    s38=v34 HP Pavilion 6630 Conexant Soft56k PCI   s38=0-v90=0 HP Pavilion 6640c Conexant Soft56k PCI   s38=0-v90=0 The above listed machines taken to a different house would logon at 48k but in the owners houses they could'nt even logon. With these settings they reliable logged on at 26.4 or28.8k.....not great but it works. If you question why this is read the following from C/Net. If you have any other codes that I don't have listed here let me know and I will post them. The following is a post from C/Net that describes 56k access and what it means. For all the buzz about how 56k will change your life, a lot can go wrong. Even the technology's name is little more than wishful thinking: you won't achieve 56 kbps, even under the best conditions, for technological and bureaucratic reasons. To help you understand why, we've assembled a list of all the potential barriers between you and that magic number. To understand some of these roadblocks, however, you need a handle on how 56k technology actually works. Roadblocks on the way to 56k All 56k specifications used today take advantage of nuances in the way the phone system is designed. In a standard call between two modems, your data must be translated into analog "tones" before it can be transmitted acrossthe telephone network. This translation is called the digital-to-analog conversion. Once your data reaches a telephone company's central office, it's translated back to digital form by a coder/decoder (codec) for transmission across the phone company's digital backbone. Unfortunately, because the telephone network contains some random noise, the analog-to-digital conversion is only an approximation of the original digital signal. To ensure that data remains readable despite the effects of this quantization noise, transmission rates are currently limited to about 53 kbps. However, because most ISPs connect directly to the phone company's digital backbone using routers, data coming from an ISP never need undergo an analog-to-digital conversion. Instead, the data can be encoded using pulse code modulation (PCM) so that it remains entirely digital until it gets to the central office. Once it arrives, the data is put through a digital-to-analog conversion before being sent across the analog phone lines to your modem. And because digital-to-analog conversions aren't affected by quantization noise, the result--in theory, at least--is throughput as high as 56 kbps from the ISP to you. The bad news? Anything that adds noise to the telephone line or causes an analog-to-digital conversion between your ISP and your modem lessens the transmission's performance. Worse than that, if there's nasty noise on the phone line, your only solution may be to move. Scream all you want, but the telephone company is obligated to provide you with a clean enough line to get 4,800-bps data rates only. But those aren't the sum of your potential troubles. The FCC says, "No more than 53 kbps!" Although your modem says "56k," you won't get throughput that fast, thanks to a speed limit set by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The reason for that regulation? Sending a signal down a telephone wire requires electrical power. But the more power you apply, the greater the chance of a problem called crosstalk. You've encountered this annoyance if you've ever heard other people's conversation during a phone call. To help prevent crosstalk, the FCC limits the amount of power that phone companies can use to send signals over the network. And this cap on signal strength limits data throughput to a maximum of 53 kbps, regardless of what your modem can actually deliver. The FCC is currently reviewing this ruling and may overturn it later this year to enable true 56-kbps modem connections. Office PBX systems If you have to dial 9 to get an outside line, your office uses a digital PBX telephone system, which means you also won't be able to achieve 56k rates. A PBX system incorporates a codec that performs an analog-to-digital conversion so that your calls can be stored digitally on magnetic media, such as hard disks. This system gives you some great features, such as employee extensions and call forwarding, but it also limits your 56k calls to a maximum throughput of about 35 kbps. Noisy analog lines Digital lines usually don't suffer from noise problems, but the analog wires between the phone company's central office and your home are a different story. If you hear buzzing or static when you listen through your phone's headset, chances are you won't be able to achieve optimum modem speed. Caller ID, answering machines, and cordless phones can add even more noise to your line. To minimize the hum, try disconnecting these types of devices one by one and listening again to determine which, if any, are the source of the problem. If this doesn't work, your line noise may be caused by nearby power lines or other environmental or structural factors. In that case, call the phone company and complain (good luck). In our testing, we injected white noise called intermodulation distortion, which is similar to what you might encounter over analog lines Central office switch-ups Connections between local central-office switches can sometimes be a problem. Old equipment may require analog termination, resulting in an analog-to-digital conversion as the call goes through to the next switch. If a local call to your ISP gets routed through these "partially analog" switches, you'll lose 56k capability. If that happens, the telephone company may be able to tell you which type of switches your call gets routed through on the way to your ISP. (One such problem switch is the AT&T 1AESS. However, the AT&T 5ESS and the Northern Telecom DMS-100/500 switches should both work fine.) When you make a long distance call, you can be sure it's traveling through digital switches only. The long distance network in the United States is, thankfully, a fully digital system. Transcontinental calls, however, use digital ADPCM encoding for voice compression, which doesn't work with 56k PCM encoding. You won't be able to get the higher throughput rates when calling another continent. Trouble in the office-to-home commute A number of problems can occur as data makes its way from the local central office to your home. Older telephone lines connect directly to the switch at the central office, and newer lines go through a digital loop carrier (DLC). These devices can combine 96 separate lines into one before they reach the central-office switch. By using DLC, the telephone company doesn't have to bury as much expensive copper wire, which saves money and increases connection reliability. But DLCs can wreak havoc with 56k. If the DLC is digitally connected to the switch, no problem--but if it uses a universal connection, an analog-to-digital conversion will occur, rendering your modem's 56-kbps capabilities useless. There may also be a pad between you and the central office. A pad balances the volume on both ends of the line when you make a call. If the pad occurs before the signal is converted to analog, you'll see only a slight degradation in 56k performance. But if you encounter an analog pad between the central office and your home, up crops another analog-to-digital conversion to sabotage your 56k connection. In our tests, we introduced digital pad impairments to see how each 56-kbps modem handled them; for the most part, the products did not find them too bothersome. Some local lines also run through an amplifier called a load coil to boost the signal rates across longer distances. Load coils cause some signal distortion and will detrimentally affect your modem's 56k throughput potential. During testing, we also tested a long local loop containing a load coil. Many of the products fell back to 28-kbps rates, while others handled this impairment without great performance loss. Connect for success Your ISP must have a fully digital connection to the telephone company's central office for 56k technology to work. This means that the ISP must have either ISDN or a T1 or T3 line. ISDN is guaranteed to be digitally terminated, but T1 lines can be broken out into 24 separate analog lines. This setup requires an analog-to-digital conversion at the ISP's end and will prevent you from getting 56k speeds. In the case of 56k technology, ISDN has another advantage over T1. ISDN generally uses out-of-band signaling, in which a separate channel is used to synchronize the flow of data and set up the call, thereby freeing the line's entire bandwidth for sending data. T1 lines use what is known as robbed-bit signaling. In that method, a bit of the incoming data is stripped off to indicate the status of an incoming or outgoing call and to synchronize the data flow, slightly reducing your maximum throughput. For more help go to http://modemhelp.net/ or http://modemhelp.org/ This modem page is for information purposes only. Local Line, Inc. Oxford, In. cannot guarantee that these methods will always prove effective and is not reponsible for any data loss and/or equipment damage that may occur. If you have additional questions about using your computer on the internet, please e-mail us at: tech@localline.com. Or call us during normal Tech Support Hours Monday through Saturday.