Has my modem been struck by lightning?

Hi all

I'd appreciate your thoughts before I spend any money, please. Following a big thunderstorm the other day (it's the monsoon season here!) the telephone lines were dead. The phone company's fixed that & we can make & receive voice calls again but Internet connection is impossible (it's a dial-up connection).

When I click on the AOL icon the usual connection screen appears & I click "Sign on" A moment later, an error message appears saying "Hardware does not support modem ". After clicking "OK" the message just reappears, with a couple others that don't stay on screen long enough to read. The only way out then is to unplug from the wall socket - neither the reset button nor the on/off power switch on the system unit will work. After re-starting and waiting for the blue "Incorrect Windows Shutdown" screen to go away, all works fine - except of course for the Internet connection.

I've had a look at 'Modem' in 'System Information' and expected to see an exclamation mark next to the modem but there wasn't one.

The modem is the internally fitted one that was pre-installed when the machine was bought about 4 years ago. Is there anything that would be worth trying, or should I just buy & install a new modem?

The OS is Windows 98SE, incidentally.

As always, your thoughts and advice are appreciated.

Thanks

 

Start>Settings>Control Panel>Modems. DBL click or right click Open.
BTW, before storm, could you hear the modem dial? If so, do you hear it now?

 

Thanks. I'll try that & see what it does. I'm working long shifts over the next three days so probably won't do anything about this until Tue or Wed. The answer to your question is, no - modem doesn't dial.

 

Martin,

Try "removing" the modem when you're in control panel and then rebooting and see if windows will find and try to reinstall it. If so, it may be good yet, but if it doesn't find a modem I'd guess you need a new one, and they're not expensive.