25 Oct
2002
25 Oct
'02
4:20 p.m.
Patrick Rigney wrote:
Good info. Mod won't do much good at this location, though. I'm rural,
about
42000' from a CO and have average speeds of about 26.4 with occasional
spurts to 28.6. No broadband alternatives on the horizon here. :-(
US
Robotics/3Com made two distinctly different versions of the 33.6
Sportster (but both use the same supply). One has an Intel flash RAM chip
in it for firmware upgrades (these are 56K X2/V90 capable if you can still
find the proper firmware, it wasn't commonly available). The other has a
ROM in it, and is pretty much stuck at 33.6. I have a number of the ROM
type 33.6 modems somewhere, and I've often wondered if they could be
modified to support the flash chip.
Toth, the flash versions also had several different internal CPU/DSP speeds
(issue ATI7 command to the modem), and USR was very plain that while the
slower models with flash were upgradeable, they would not achieve the
connection speeds of their faster siblings. Mine happens to be an older
flashable model, and my experience was exactly as USR advertised: the
upgraded modem never connected at the same rate as a newer model of the same
modem with X2/V90 out-of-the-box. I have a (server) folder of USR stuff, I
tend to be a packrat about software, and I've got this goodie called the
"3Com Internet Update Wizard" dated 10/4/1999, which seems to be the flash
updater (it downloads a flash file from USR to apply). I also found some
downloadables for updating at http://www.usr.com/infinity/.
--Patrick