Pavilion 8240 I need help on my modem

[Melissa_33]

I have a Pavilion 8240 and it came with Windows 95, but I have upgraded the Memory and I now have Windows 98 SE.

I have no idea how fast my modem is. All it says about it is that it is a:

LT Win Modem

It says it came with a 56K Flex modem, but my computer is very slow. I only normally connect at 28.8 kbps I did an update so sometimes it connects up to 36.0 kbps now.

I am wondering if I go and buy a 56K modem if it will be faster, but the thing is all the ones I see looks like it wont fit in my computer. They are backwards from what I got its like the pegs or whatever need to be on the other side.

If someone could help tell me If I do indeed have a 56k modem or what kind will fit in this computer or maybe I need more memory for it to run faster.

Any help would be great!

Thanks

[Ron Kinner]

The latest HP driver for your beast is at:

http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/softwareDownloadIndex.jhtml?reg=&cc=&softitem=pv171en&prodId=pv8240&lc=en&sw_lang=en&pagetype=software

56KFlex is an obsolete standard which is probably not supported by your ISP so it has to drop back to a slower speed. Most of the external 56Flex modems had a firmware upgrade available which would let them change over to the newer V.90 standard. I don't see a firmware upgrade on the list at
http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/softwareList.jhtml;jsessionid=ROSCMSQNOWLNRQEXGR5UOSQ?reg=&cc=&prodId=pv8240&lc=en&softitem=Microsoft%20Windows%2098&sw_lang=en&pagetype=software

but maybe the modem driver will fix the problem. Lucent's Winmodems use the PC's CPU to handle a lot of the details so they may not need a firmware upgrade.

Agere, which is the Lucent spinoff in charge of modems, has a much newer driver which you can try.

http://www.agere.com/support/client/modem_driver2.html

HP sort of loses interest in their older products. I doubt they have upgraded the software page in years.

There are a lot of sites which will test your connection speed for you if you are in the US.

http://tech.msn.com/internet/speedtest.asp?0si=-

is pretty good but

http://www.testmyspeed.com/speedtests/index.html

has some for international users.

A bad telephone line or a SLC (telephone company stuff out on the pole somewhere) with the wrong card in it can restrict your speed too. It sometimes helps to cut the internal house loop but that's probably a bit over your head. Try it at a friend's house where you know he connects at at least 50K before you start worrying about the line unless you have a lot of noise when you talk.

Ron