Here's the deal:

I live in the boondocks, and I'm stuck on a dial-up connection. The other day, my PC (Windows XP Home Edition) randomly decided to stop connecting to the Internet. The error message said something about "The remote computer did not respond" when I dialed multiple times. I figured it was a mistake on the ISP's end, since it was saying something about the remote computer.

I tried dialing in to several different local access numbers, and I spent nearly two hours on the phone with an Earthlink representative as he tried to get me online. Nothing worked. In the end, he said it was my modem and I needed to contact my computer manufacturer. I honestly thought my problem just had him stumped so he made something up about the modem being messed up, but he was probably right. Especially since I can connect to the same dial-up account from the same land-line at the same phone jack in my house as long as I'm using my girlfriend's computer.

I called the computer manufacturer, but since it's no longer under warranty, it would cost me to get tech support. Or that's what E-Machines is telling me.

So there's the situation. Internet works fine on her computer, but it's messed up on mine. I'm not what you would call technically oriented, so I need some suggestions here. What can I do, short of buying a new modem or moving to a place where high(er) speed Internet is available, to fix this?

What other information do you need out of me to help?

5/14/2007 4:25:12 PM

Your first mistake was buying an eMachines "computer". eMachines is a crap peddler.

Replace the modem. You can get them for free (or close to it). They're about $5 on ebay. To install new hardware:

1) Open device manager (Windows Key + Break/Pause Key) -> Hardware Tab -> Device Manager Button.
2) Locate your current modem in the device manager and uninstall it (right-click -> uninstall). It will want to reboot but don't do that yet
3) Install the drivers for the new modem if it came with a setup application.
4) Turn off the computer. Unplug it.
5) Remove old modem and replace with new one.
6) Plug in and turn on computer.
7) The computer should automatically recognize and install drivers for the modem at this point. If it does not, the instructions that come with the modem will tell you how to tell it what drivers to install.

5/14/2007 10:41:16 PM