Hmm... aside from the problem in the previous post, there's also another problem with my modem card. It only works once per session; if I want to use it again, I have to completely restart the computer, otherwise it hangs when it tries to initialize. I'm guessing this is some problem with IE not properly "releasing" the modem when I hit the Disconnect button, but I'm not sure.

I've done some more experimenting, and proven it to be much less reliable than I give it credit for. Sometimes it actually works a second time, and sometimes it hangs; it seems to be completely random, though I've yet to see it work three times in a row.

O.K. P100/16Mb and a decent modem. The machines I've had up and running are all much slower and I only use IE3.03 because of the slow machines. Have you tried an early version of Netscape or IE 4.x yet? And don't forget to check your phone lines (connection speed sounds good) and make sure you have nothing plugged into the output jack of the modem. Lastly, 16Mb is not a lot of memory for modern day browsing and downloading. The video subsystem and wfw is going to use most of 16Mb just to stay alive. Skip

Previously I did try IE 3.03, but found it less than capable of even correctly displaying some of my favorite web pages, so I'm running 5.01 now. Also, Program Manager reports in the 50%-60% range for free resources when I have one browser window open, which is usually all there is, so I don't think that's the problem, although I sometimes do get input lag on memory-intensive sites. I'd download a 16-bit version of Netscape but I'd still have to use the IE dialer, which is the thing giving me trouble when it hangs on initializing. Again, I suspect it's not correctly releasing the modem because of the fact that it never fails if I restart before dialing, but almost always fails if I don't. I actually never thought of the phone line being a problem, but this is the first time I'm trying this and I'm actually dialing through the second line of my relatives' house, and to them the access number isn't quite local. There's nothing plugged into the modem except the phone line; it's a PCMCIA card so it just has the socket for the phone jack and another one for the ethernet dongle. (Interestingly enough, the one time I got IE to autodetect my modem, it claimed it was a "Standard Modem", as opposed to a "Standard PCMCIA Card Modem". The modem list does have a list for Xircom, but no entry for my particular modem. I'm thinking that changing the modem type to a similar model might do something.)

Yeah, IE dialer does similar action to me. If it fails to connect (or disconnects), it's easier on my nerves if I just restart instead of risking instability. It does re-connect usually, but can lock up after a while. It use to even kick entirely out of Windows. (I must have set "something" right as it hasn't done that to me lately, thankfully.) A restart takes only 5-6 seconds to reload everything on my machine anyway so it is my preferred course of action.

Glad to know that you are able to restart so quickly; my machine takes about a full minute to load from boot, and half of that is WFWG starting up... when I had regular 3.1 it loaded in a second. Odd. Anyway, I have discovered the problem: It has to do with my particular laptop's "restore" functionality, which, when turned on, allows me to power on the computer and return directly to its previous state instead of doing a full boot, saving a ton of time. It's kind of like the "sleep" or "hibernate" options you can still find on today's computers. Unfortunately this seems to mess up the modem somehow; I'll do some tests and see if I can't get it to work. But it's nice to know that it's not a software problem.