Westell DSL Modem not recognized

[Dave446]

Hi all,

Trying to help a friend here and I have an idea what's wrong...but can't confirm.

He's running an old Dell Pentium 350mhz with 192MB Ram running windows 98SE. He just went for DSL lite from bellsouth but can't get the PC to recognize the modem.

I had him run hardware wizard and also power off and on with the device plugged in but it doesn't see it via either USB port. The ports are enabled and his digital camera works fine in them. He has no lan capability.

He brought me the modem (a westell 6100) and it works fine on my 2 PCs and windows 2000 recognized the hardware immediately. I didn't need to install a usb driver bcus my westell 2100usb driver worked fine with it. I also tested it on LAN and that works fine too.

I don't think its windows 98SE not working with that modem bcus prior to my new PCs and O/S i ran my westell 2100 modem on W98SE with no problem.

I'm leaning towards a possible BIOS problem with his Dell not recognizing that hardware since its so much newer than the PC. I didn't check his BIOS and am also very leary of even trying to update it to see if that helps (assuming theres an update) bcus of the possibility of a bad flash. I'd hate to take him from bad to worse.

Only thing I can think of is to install a LAN card and try that....but he hasn't embraced that idea yet (don't know why) and still thinks he can get it going on usb. A new PC is on the horizon but not tomorrow so he's workin with what he has.

Any ideas on the usb issue besides my BIOS theory?
(again ports do work with a digital camera)

Sorry for the length but want to be thorough.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Dave

[merlin_2]

see if this cures it.......go into the device manager. click usb host controllers...click properties/click adavanced and untick  the disable  usb correction box......or they other way around.?

[Raptor]

Did you install the correct drivers?

[Dave446]

Thanks guys.

Merlin...is your suggestion intended to turn on a USB port that is turned off (they're both on because they both work with a digital camera) or to modify the USB Host controller in some respect that may affect the ports working with other devices?

Raptor...thanks for the suggestion but there is only one
driver on the cd to cover windows in general. The CD wizard won't let him continue install since it doesn't detect the hardware. I told him to NOT use the CD wizard anyway since it also installs bellsouth broadjump ie plugin which isn't needed (by anyone) and to canel out of the bellsouth wizard when the cd is inserted. Then to direct the Windows hardware wizard to the CD when it asks for a driver.  Problem we're trying to correct is....
windows doesn't detect the new hardware to prompt for a driver in the first place.

Despite my test of his modem at my place coming out fine with LAN and USB ....he was told by bellsouth that it sounds like a modem problem ($3 hr trainees reading a check list) and they sent him anothe modem. I don't need to report the results.

Will look for your reply re: host controller (above) Merlin but frankly I'm hoping he just goes for a LAN card already.

Thanks,
Dave