David A Abbe wrote:
>
> with this talk of modems, it reminded me of a semi-recent post which said
> something to the effect of there are two types of modems.....those which
> do the work themselves, and those which rely on your processor and tax
> it...  when you are on the internet, just goofing off, maybe downloading
> a file or two, and generally not using your system for anything else,
> (i.e. no heavy applications going), just how much are you using the
> processor anyways??  would i actually notice a big performance hit??

David (great name btw),

I work @ a local computer store and a user brought in a computer with a
WinModem that he wanted us to install for him.  I must have spent over
2.5 hours trying to get that damn thing to work and I still couldn't get
it to work permanently.  I could configure the computer's ports & the
modem with the Windows drivers & then connect to an ISP.  However as
soon as I restarted the computer the computer had changed the com port
that the modem was residing on & I couldn't get the WinModem to work
again without removing the port & modem & then re-installing them,
having Windows detect the com port.  After giving up on the WinModem, I
installed one of our store's hardware-based modems and had it configured
and running perfectly within maybe 10 minutes max, including the
physical install.  I don't know if these problems were just with this
customer's computer or if it is a common happening.  David Gillet
already mentioned the other issues in terms of performance & I have to
agree with him 100%...THX David G. for mentioning Linux, the greatest OS
in the world :-)

Just thought you'd like to hear this horror story before you waste your
money.

--
Bye for now,

David Coulthart
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http://www2.cybernex.net/~pepermil/