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Help! I get Disconnected all the TimeHere's a rundown of the most common solutions for unwanted disconnects. OUTLOOK EXPRESS Start Outlook and go to Tools/Options/Connections. Look for the check box marked "Hang up after sending and receiving" Make sure this check box is NOT checked. INTERNET OPTIONS Go to Control Panel/Internet Options/Connections. At this point it varies depending on your version of Windows. In Win 98 you then highlight the "ozarkisp.net" connection and click on Advanced. You will see a check box beside "Disconnect if idle for x minutes" Where 'x' is a variable. You should have this checked incase you leave your computer and forget to disconnect from the Internet. Set this to the number of minutes you like. Please note that this is idle time and not connection time. Idle means that you can be connected, but not actively transferring files to or from your computer over the dial up connection. For example, if you download your email and then take 20 minutes to read it and the idle time is set for 10 minutes your computer will disconnect you after 10 minutes. DISABLE CALL WAITING You probably know this already, but you should disable call waiting. The "click" of an incoming call may
disconnect you, though newer modems have improved error correction that is less sensitive to this.
In most areas, you can disable call waiting on a touchtone line by placing *70, in front of the phone
number, like so: Note that in some areas, the phone company charges you each time you disable call waiting. Also, some areas use different commands, or may require you to request the ability to disable call waiting. If in doubt, call your phone company. UPGRADE FIRMWARE, INIT STRINGS, AND DRIVERS Many disconnect problems can be solved by loading a more recent version of the firmware (software drivers). Check http://www.56k.com/firmware . Likewise, having the correct modem init string or driver installed is important. Check http://www.56k.com/inits. TRY UNPLUGGING ANY DEVICES FROM THE BACK OF THE MODEM Modems have two phone jacks on the back: one is for the line connected to the wall jack. The other is for plugging in a telephone, answering machine, fax machine, etc. Try unplugging your telephone or any other device attached to the back of the modem. Some devices may cause problems. For instance, some telephones draw power from the phone line every 15 minutes to power the circuits that keep track of speed dial numbers. Try unplugging other telephone equipment in the house It's possible to have too many devices on your phone lines or extension. Try unplugging extra phones, fax machines, and answering machines to see if the disconnects stop. TRY LOWERING THE PORT SPEED Older PCs may have weak UARTs that are not capable of high speed communications. As a result, you may get frequent dropped connections and/or poor modem performance due to resent packets. To test this, try lowering your port speed to 38400 or even 19200. If the dropped connections cease, a slow UART may be the problem. A replacement serial port card should fix the problem. For use with a 56K modem, you want at least 16550 UART. Internal 56K modems should include a 16550 or higher UART on the card. LOWERING CONNECT SPEED The commands for controlling maximum connect speed are different for Rockwell-based and Lucent-based modems. On most Rockwell-based V.90 or V.90/K56flex modems If you normally get disconnected when you connect at 48000, you might try using: +MS=12,0,9600,46000 If that didn't work, you would try: +MS=12,0,9600,44000 +MS=12,0,9600,42000
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