Once apon a time Paul Quinn said, 'Modem Troubles' to John Piper...

 PQ> Oops, then he'll have other problems when the BIOS/Windows can't find
 PQ> COM3 and will allocate the COM3 base address against COM4.  :)

 PQ> A good alternative is to set the existing COM2 as COM4 and install the
 PQ> internal as COM2.

Bad alternative IMHO. Especially with Windows 95 - it does NOT tolerate
shared IRQ's, if you have your modem on COM2 IRQ3, and set the onboard
comport (which I assume it is, since it wasnt stated) to COM4, then you
usually cant change the IRQ away from IRQ3, and hence you still get a
clash. You can get away with it with Windows 3.11, but with 95 you're
really asking for trouble.

I have only found two ways of installing an internal modem under Win95
(also applicable to Win3.11) that are absolutely trouble free:

1) Disable the onboard (or multiIO card) COM2, and set the modem up as
standard COM2 IRQ3. This involves CONFIRMING that the existing COM2 is
in fact disabled properly BEFORE fitting the modem. (Something that many
people fail to do)

This is my prefered method, disadvantage is that you lose the use of COM2
for external devices, advantages are that it ALWAYS works properly
(assuming you can disable the built in port fully) and the IRQ is standard,
which is particularly important for old DOS software, especially modem
games....

2) Put the modem on COM3, nostandard IRQ. (IE not IRQ 4) The advantage is
that you can still use COM2, disadvantages are it can be very difficult
finding a free IRQ, as most modem offer a limited range of choices, and
some old software may not be able to use a nonstandard IRQ.

Other methods that people often (like 80% of the machines I've seen) use to
install modems, that dont work properly, are:

* Modem on COM3 IRQ 4 - IRQ clashes with mouse on COM1 (dont laugh, I've
seen this many times)

* Modem on COM4 IRQ 3 - Often works, but some video cards in some resolutions
interfere with the port address range causing wierd problems. Also, Win95
gets upset about the IRQ conflict with COM2, even if you aren't using it
at the same time.

* Modem on COM3 IRQ4 and mouse on COM2 IRQ 3 - same problem as above, Win95
gets upset by the IRQ clash between COM3 and COM1 even though COM1 may be
unused.

Regards,
Simon

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