I recently reformatted a friends computer and loaded Win98SE: Athlon 900 Asus A7V rev1.02 (Promise onboard raid, no onboard sound) 128Mb Sdram Maxtor 30Gb (Primary Master) DVD Rom (Secondary Master) CD RW (Secondary Slave) Geforce 2MX (AGP) Soundblaster Live Value (PCI Slot 3) Generic 56k Modem (K56FlexI think, in PCI Slot 4) 2 Extra USB ports via backplate PS/2 Mouse & Keyboard. My problem is the modem will only configure to Com 5. Every time I try to use it, it says "Port cannot be opened". Also the Soundblaster causes the system to hang after bootup. I stripped the slots down to just the graphics card and reformated again. I loaded the latest 4in1's (3.37), flashed to the latest bios (1010), and inserted only the modem. It still went to Com 5. There is nothing else connected to any of the ports, and as far as I could see, no conlicts with any other item. As a final resort to test if the modem and soundbalster were faulty, I put them in my own system (An ancient old BX running WinXP), and had them working perfectly in minutes! Any help would be most appreciated.

Just a shot.... If it's an internal modem, check to see if there's a jumper on the card which designates Comm ports. I have a Supra 288i DATA/FAX modem in my other machine which has this. I set it to Comm2 and dis-abled Comm2 in the bios so the card handles that port.

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately the modem is jumperless as well as useless.

After trying several things that didn't get my modem working. How I fixed mine...uninstalled the modem from the device mananger, took the modem out of the computer,restarted the computer, put the modem back in restarted again. Windows then searched for and installed the "new hardware" and assigned it to the proper com port (which in my case was com3)

I've tried unistalling the modem and placing in all the available PCI slots still no luck. (To much time on my hands obviously)

Hi Glenn I also have the same problem, and have posted on these boards. I've got a few replys, coming up... --------------- "Disable COM1 in the BIOS and then download the correct drivers from the modem manufacturer and install it again." "Ian: Your motherboard has only one on-board com port. Check the specs here: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/products/ga6wmm7.htm Adding a modem card should cause another serial port to be recognized by Win9x. In Win9x, to check the Com1 port settings go to Start->Settings ->Control Panel->System->Device Manager->Ports-> Com1->Properties->Resouces. Assuming Com 1 is on the motherboard, Com 2 on the modem would use I/O: 02F8-02FF, IRQ: 3. You may need to set jumpers on your modem card for Com 2." --------------- I dont know if any of this will help you, but give it a try anyway. You may wish to read my post at the link above. Cheers, Hope u get it working.

This site may help you indentify the problem http://808hi.com/56k/trouble.asp