On Wed, 23 Sep 1998 "K. Karl Kuller" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
<snip>
>When I tried to send e-mail, I received
>the dreaded message: hardware failure. When
>I tried again, the ISP computer did not
>recognize my name and password! When I tried
>to shut down the computer after checking that
>telephone was 'Off Hook', it would not shut
>down and told me that the program (Outlook
>Express or DUN?) would not shut down. I then
>forced the program to close. When I checked
>the telephone, there was no dial tone and
>both telephones in the house were
>inoperative!
> I disconnected the modem, thinking it had
>gone bad. This returned the telephone
>operation back to normal. On a subsequent
>reboot of the computer, everything was
>working normally again! Has anyone else
>experienced this?
Compared to the computer, the telephone is ancient technology
and some of its jargon is ancient too...
Imagine you are watching one of those old movies and someone
makes a phone call by picking up the receiver and holding it
to their ear, meanwhile speaking into the microphone on the
box on the wall; or by holding a candlestick phone, removing
the receiver and placing it to their ear...
That's the 'Off Hook' condition: when you take the dangly bit
off the hook it normally hangs from, which hook springs up
and operates a switch, which in turn connects you to the line.
Somehow that has never been modernised to an 'Off Rest' condition,
for when you lift the combined receiver-transmitter handset.
So "checking that telephone was 'Off Hook'" means your modem
was connected to the phone line, and (just as if any other
phone in the house was 'Off Hook' and a call in progress)
you got no dialling tone. Since something else was wrong
with that dialled call and the computer was not communicating,
you heard nothing at all. Since a call was in progress
(though fouled up somehow) DUN would not shut down.
SNAFU (to use some other telephone jargon :-)
Disconnecting the modem didn't 'return the telephone operation
back to normal' - it was normal.
It just terminated that call so you could make another one.
(Though unplugging a phone is an unusual way to end a phone call.)
When you rebooted, everything initialised properly and,
as with so many other computer problems, we shall never
know what was wrong with the previous connection because
most of the evidence has evaporated.
The only bit of your story that is unusual is
"the dreaded message: hardware failure".
Was "hardware failure" the sole content of the message
or did it have some context, such as the name of
* the software component that gave it or
* the hardware component that was failing?
That might enable someone to make a specific diagnosis,
but (unless it happens again and you collect more info)
you can put it down to DUN crashing, or a gamma ray striking
your modem, or any other unprovable gremlin you like ;-)
Len Warner <[log in to unmask]> http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~len/ ICQ:10120933
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