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From: Paul 
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Subject: Re: dialup problems
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2017 06:35:25 -0500
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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james@nospam.com wrote:

> 
> This gets very complicated and confusing to me. To sum it up, from what
> you said, it seems like there is V90 / 92 and K56 Flex. The two basic
> options. Since my Sportsters have never given me a decent connection
> using XP, I want to try something else. Since the Sportsters are V90/92,
> I assume I need to try the K56Flex. Is that correct?
> 
> This Supra Express modem says it has BOTH the V90 and K56Flex. Is that a
> good choice for me, or is there something better (another brand)? 
> 
> What should I be looking for? Model numbers will help a lot more than
> all this highly technical info. I cant see what chip is being used when
> I look at modems on ebay or whereever.

If you were going on a modem-buying spree, I think testing
a K56Flex might be fun for a change.

The industry says that flash upgrading these two modem types,
would give *identical* V90 behavior. That was bullshit, based
on my testing. The original "flavor" of each, leaks through.
Even with the V90 firmware in place, the K56Flex works better with a
K56 front end. This is why I ended up with two modems, flipping
back and forth depending on what I was calling into. The IT department
at work, lent me a K56Flex to test with, and that's when I
decided to buy one.

     X2 _________
                 \___V90
     K56Flex ____/

I don't know an easy way to produce a list of K56Flex products.
That list I found is a start, but it's highly unlikely to be
perfectly accurate today in 2017. Since you're in the used
market, and since the V90 era was quite a while ago, I suppose
items in the list would still make sense as choices.

If the product description includes the K56Flex terminology,
that means there is a Rockwell or Conexant-branded ACF chip
inside. The example I gave, of the picture of my DiamondMM
Supra, shows that my chip was an ACF type. And Rockwell/Conexant
is the K56 camp.

*******

There are other ways to debug dialup modems.

The modem records the performance of the frequency buckets
in the 0-4KHz voice range. After a dialup session completes,
and the modem hangs up, you can use a particular AT
command (from Hyperterm) to dump the performance data.
However, I'll save you the trouble, and tell you not
to bother with this :-) I didn't find the data all
that impressive looking. It looked pretty random to me.

    Paul
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