BG> got fed up with every 3rd or 4th connect failing to negotiate properly.

RM> Get a 14400 Sweatsock!.

BG> Why?  I've already had 3 of them -

RM> all 14400s??

He certainly had the same as you at one time.

BG> - all different too (US/Canada internal and external, and an Austel
BG> external), as well as 2 EPROMs in this current V.34, with another on
BG> the way.  BTW, the 28k8 EPROMs were not bugfixes, but upgrades from
BG> what was originally a V.FC-only Sportster (to V.34, and now V.34+).

RM> The only common failure I have happens when I forget
RM> to reboot after sending a fax with WinFaxLite, and
RM> that's probably fixable with a better init string.

Yes, that particular one normally would be.

RM> Apart from that, I get a funny connect maybe once in 20, the modem rejects
RM> it cos it's not ARQ, the comms prog redials, the next connect works.

BG> And that's EXACTLY the same symptom which the rest of us are seeing with
BG> Paul's Spirit, albeit considerably more frequently than you appear to.

He's right, thats precisely the problem.

RM> It ain't just the Sportsters either, as
BG> it happened with 2 Dynalinks I "evaluated".

RM> Apart from the "you dummy" winfax situation outlined
RM> above, I've never had two failures in a row,

I dont think I have either, might have once, forget.

RM> so I've put it down to an occasional bad line.

Nope, its the Spirit problem. I just dont ever get that when calling
other than a Spirit, so it cant be an occasional bad line. And a bad
line shouldnt give that particular symptom anyway, you should get a
proper V42bis connect with a higher than usual error rate which drops
the thruput a bit. Not that that normally happens either for me tho.
OTOH I am on a decent modern digital exchange.

RM> Maybe you need to move north.

Bob uses the same modem as you have, no problems at all.

RM> ps dunno about the "need for speed" - a guy at work does a bit of
RM> internet hunting, and the last file he downloaded averaged 0.3 kbaud.

Yeah, its one of the subtletys of an internet ISP, you can at times
get a lower cost per decent sized file on the more expensive ISPs.

RM> The 2400 baud modem built into his bubby
RM> Dauphin palmtop works just fine, thank you...

WWW pages can be a tad of a problem with that config tho |-)

--- PQWK202