3Com Megahertz 56K WinModem - How can I get it to work?

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Foucault
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Joined: Tue 25 Jul 2006, 04:43

3Com Megahertz 56K WinModem - How can I get it to work?

#1 Post by Foucault »

According to the modems page on the wiki for hardware found to work in Puppy:

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/ModemPageWorking

the modem in my old laptop, a 3Com Megahertz 56K WinModem Card, Model 3CXM556 should work. However, the modem wizard doesn't seem to be detecting it.

I'm running Puppy 2.01 on it, and have no other way to connect that particular machine to the internet.

What do I need to do to get this working in Puppy? This is the only thing standing in the way of getting a working (albeit) old computer into the hands of my limited income parents in the UK, so we can e-mail back and forth from the US, and so they can see up to date photos of their 2-Year-Old-And-Growing Granddaughter!

Billcnz
Posts: 215
Joined: Fri 30 Jun 2006, 23:07
Location: Wellington New Zealand

#2 Post by Billcnz »

I assume this is a pcmcia card modem. Looks like someone else had one of these working here: http://puppylinux.org/wikka/TheBabbs
(Says it was autodetected as a serial modem)
Have you tried all of the serial ports in the modem wizard from ttys0 to ttys4?

Bill

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fluxit
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Location: Ketchikan, AK USA

#3 Post by fluxit »

the modem in my old laptop, a 3Com Megahertz 56K WinModem Card, Model 3CXM556 should work. However, the modem wizard doesn't seem to be detecting it.
Is PCMCIA working on that laptop? What do you get from a dmesg command after removing, then hot-plugging your modem?

--Lee

Foucault
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Joined: Tue 25 Jul 2006, 04:43

#4 Post by Foucault »

fluxit wrote:
the modem in my old laptop, a 3Com Megahertz 56K WinModem Card, Model 3CXM556 should work. However, the modem wizard doesn't seem to be detecting it.
Is PCMCIA working on that laptop? What do you get from a dmesg command after removing, then hot-plugging your modem?

--Lee
What am I looking for? There were loads of messages. Since I don't have a printer connected to the laptop, and there is no internet connection, how can I let you know what I saw? I did see that after I'd inserted the card, there was a message "pccard: PCMCIA card inserted into slot 0." Is that what you were looking for?

Something else I noticed on both reports:

"pcmcia: Detected deprecated PCMCIA loctl usage.
pcmcia: This interface will soon be removed from the kernel: please expect breakage unles you upgrade to new tools."

Is that enough to give you a clue?

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fluxit
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Location: Ketchikan, AK USA

#5 Post by fluxit »

What am I looking for? There were loads of messages. Since I don't have a printer connected to the laptop, and there is no internet connection, how can I let you know what I saw? I did see that after I'd inserted the card, there was a message "pccard: PCMCIA card inserted into slot 0." Is that what you were looking for?
Oops, sorry about that. Yes the "card inserted" tells me that you have a working(presumably) PCMCIA driver installed.

Is card manager running? ps | grep cardmgr will tell you if it is or not. /sbin/cardmgr will load it for you.

What about the PCMCIA serial port driver serial_cs? modprobe serial_cs to load.

These should be all that is required for the 3CXM556.

--Lee

Foucault
Posts: 87
Joined: Tue 25 Jul 2006, 04:43

#6 Post by Foucault »

fluxit wrote: Is card manager running? ps | grep cardmgr will tell you if it is or not. /sbin/cardmgr will load it for you.

What about the PCMCIA serial port driver serial_cs? modprobe serial_cs to load.

These should be all that is required for the 3CXM556.

--Lee
When I typed ps | grep cardmgr this is what I saw:

Code: Select all

 919 root     308 S   /sbin/cardmgr
7209 root     580 S   grep cardmgr
Does that mean that card manager is running? I assume so.

When I typed modrprobe serial_cs, nothing dramatica happened.

It occured to me that I just don't understand what I'm doing here. When I run the modem wizard, I get the following:

Code: Select all

FAIL: /dev/ttyS0 does not seem to be a modem. Try another "tty*" port...
(or, if you really want to use this one, press "SAVE")
I get the same for ttyS1

For ttyS2, I get something a little different. I get:

Code: Select all

FAIL, /dev/ttyS2 does not seem to have an irq assigned
There is probably nothing on that port so try another ...
HOWEVER, for linmodems, maybe some other types, this irq
test may have failed but the modem may still work, so 
continuing with testing port /dev/ttyS2...

FAIL: /dev/ttyS2 does not seem to be a modem. Try another "tty* port...
(or, if you really want to use this one, press "SAVE")
I get similar messages for S3 and S4

Does any of this help.

Will the modem only register as valid if it is connected to the phone line? I don't have a dial-up service, so I haven't been able to test this.

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fluxit
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Location: Ketchikan, AK USA

#7 Post by fluxit »

Will the modem only register as valid if it is connected to the phone line? I don't have a dial-up service, so I haven't been able to test this.
It should respond to commands(what is required for a successful "modem wizard" test) as soon as it is plugged and initialized by cardmgr.

Try this:

1. dmesg -c >null
2. Plug in the modem.
3. dmesg

With the second dmesg, you should see output similar to this:

Code: Select all

pccard: PCMCIA card inserted into slot 1
cs: memory probe 0x0d0000-0x0dffff: excluding 0xd0000-0xd1fff
cs: memory probe 0x0e0000-0x0effff: clean.
pcmcia: registering new device pcmcia1.0
1.0: ttyS1 at I/O 0x2f8 (irq = 9) is a 16550A
In addition, what do you see from cardctl status, cardctl ident, and cardctl config commands? Also an lsmod just for good measure please(with the modem plugged in.)

I no longer had a PCMCIA modem in my possession, having given mine to a friend a few years ago. I borrowed one from a client today for testing. The borrowed modem does pass Puppy's "modem wizard" test in my Toshiba laptop.

--Lee

Foucault
Posts: 87
Joined: Tue 25 Jul 2006, 04:43

#8 Post by Foucault »

fluxit wrote: Try this:

1. dmesg -c >null
2. Plug in the modem.
3. dmesg

With the second dmesg, you should see output similar to this:

Code: Select all

pccard: PCMCIA card inserted into slot 1
cs: memory probe 0x0d0000-0x0dffff: excluding 0xd0000-0xd1fff
cs: memory probe 0x0e0000-0x0effff: clean.
pcmcia: registering new device pcmcia1.0
1.0: ttyS1 at I/O 0x2f8 (irq = 9) is a 16550A
I saw the following:

Code: Select all

pccard: PCMCIA card inserted into slot 0
pcmcia: registering new device pcmcia0.0
In addition, what do you see from cardctl status
This is what I saw:

Code: Select all

Socket 0:
     5V 16-bit PC Card
     function 0: [ready],   [wp]
Socket 1:
     no card
cardctl ident

Code: Select all

Socket 0:
     product info: "3Com",   "Megahertz 3CXM356",   "56K PC Carde Modem For Windows"
     manfid: 0x0101,  0x002e
     function: 254 ((null))
Socket 1:
     no product info available
cardctl config

Code: Select all

Socket 0:
     Vcc 5.0V   Vpp1 5.0V  Vpp2 5.0V
Socket 1:
     not configured
Also an lsmod just for good measure please(with the modem plugged in.)

Code: Select all

Module                   Size      Used by
snd_mixer_oss      18448  0
snd                            54372 1 snd_mixer_oss
soundcore                9568   1 snd
usb_storage             84736 0
usbcore                   129092 1 usb_storage
lp                              12616   0
parport_pc              32740  1
parport                    35976   2  lp,parport_pc
yenta_socket          26876  0
pd6729                    10336  6
rsrc_nonstatic         13680 2 yenta_socket,pd6729

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fluxit
Posts: 326
Joined: Sat 24 Jun 2006, 04:14
Location: Ketchikan, AK USA

#9 Post by fluxit »

Socket 0:
product info: "3Com", "Megahertz 3CXM356", "56K PC Carde Modem For Windows"
That's a problem. 3CXM556 as listed in your original post is linux compatible. As far as I have been able to determine 3CXM356(note the 3 as opposed to 5) has no drivers for linux. See http://www.linuxselfhelp.com/HOWTO/Hard ... tible.html
30. Appendix E. Linux incompatible Hardware

-snip-
Modems

*

3Com 3CXM356/3CCM356 and 3CXM656/3CCM656 PCMCIA
*


Foucault
Posts: 87
Joined: Tue 25 Jul 2006, 04:43

#10 Post by Foucault »

Darn it! I missed that all-too-significant digit!

So, I'm SOL. Back to the drawing-board. Trying to do this without spending a dime. Perhaps I can find someone (perhaps on Freecycle) with an old pcmcia card that does work. I definitely want something that's self-contained, because my parents are going to have limited space.

Thanks for all your help, and sorry for wasting your time.
Last edited by Foucault on Fri 11 Aug 2006, 03:54, edited 1 time in total.

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fluxit
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Location: Ketchikan, AK USA

#11 Post by fluxit »

It wasn't a waste at all.

I learned quite a bit about PCMCIA and Linux that no doubt will come in handy at some point. Good luck with your search for a new modem.

--Lee

Foucault
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Joined: Tue 25 Jul 2006, 04:43

#12 Post by Foucault »

Thanks! And good for you for seeing this in a positive light.

Billcnz
Posts: 215
Joined: Fri 30 Jun 2006, 23:07
Location: Wellington New Zealand

#13 Post by Billcnz »

I just tested a pcmcia modem in my laptop, it's a completely different model so wont be much help to you but it's an indication that if you find a card that works in linux it should be fine in Puppy. The one I tested was: DIVA Mobile V.90 PC Card by EICON Technology, it was detected on ttyS1 (com2) and irq 5 and worked fine.

Bill

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fluxit
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Location: Ketchikan, AK USA

#14 Post by fluxit »

if you find a card that works in linux it should be fine in puppy
Definitely.

For the sake of completeness, the modem I tested with(which works fine) is a NEC branded USR XJ1288, model #0P-710-4014.

Foucault
Posts: 87
Joined: Tue 25 Jul 2006, 04:43

#15 Post by Foucault »

Thanks guys! I'll see if I can locate a PCMCIA modem that works with Puppy.

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