[wright3279]

I bought my son a computer and all he can afford right now is dialup. At my house I hooked it up to my DSL line and downloaded various applications. When we go thru the Connection Wizard at his house for him to set up on dialup. we can't get past the stage where it says "How do you connect to the internet?" The correct choice is the first one "Connect using a dialup modem" But that choice is grayed out. The only one not, is the last one "Connect Using a broadband connection" My ISP tech support had no idea and sent me to Microsoft Support and I wound up talking to someone from India for 2 hours. No help. Its Windows XP SP 2. All updates are installed, including IE7. The connection on Start/Connect to is 3com etherlink XL 10/100 PCI TX N Is that the modem? I've gone to Device manager and uninstalled and reinstalled the modem. What else?

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Sounds like your son's PC does not have a dial-up modem installed. They can be either external ones or internal ones which fit into a PCI slot inside the system-box. The device "3com etherlink XL 10/100 PCI TX N" listed in your device manager is NOT a dial-up modem. It's an ethernet network-card for connecting to an "always on" broadband connection via ADSL or cable - also has a different size connector socket compared to a dial-up phone-line connection. The dial-up connector will be next to it if a dial-up modem is fitted internally. This is the connector you should be using for dial-up, connected to a standard BT phone line box at the other end.

It's possible a dial-up PCI modem is actually fitted inside the system-box but no driver is installed for it. If that was the case, there would be a red exlamation mark or yellow question mark in device manager.

If device manager shows no such entries, then there is no dial-up modem installed. Either way (no modem or no driver) would explain why that option is greyed out in the connection wizard.

Edited by pip22, 27 March 2007 - 01:10 AM.

[pip22]

Sounds like your son's PC does not have a dial-up modem installed. They can be either external ones or internal ones which fit into a PCI slot inside the system-box. The device "3com etherlink XL 10/100 PCI TX N" listed in your device manager is NOT a dial-up modem. It's an ethernet network-card for connecting to an "always on" broadband connection via ADSL or cable - also has a different size connector socket compared to a dial-up phone-line connection. The dial-up connector will be next to it if a dial-up modem is fitted internally. This is the connector you should be using for dial-up, connected to a standard BT phone line box at the other end.

It's possible a dial-up PCI modem is actually fitted inside the system-box but no driver is installed for it. If that was the case, there would be a red exlamation mark or yellow question mark in device manager.

If device manager shows no such entries, then there is no dial-up modem installed. Either way (no modem or no driver) would explain why that option is greyed out in the connection wizard.

Edited by pip22, 27 March 2007 - 01:10 AM.