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Best Data 56K V.92 External Fax Modem (56SX92)

Best Data 56K V.92 External Fax Modem (56SX92)

List Price:
Your Price: $41.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: modem blue screens WIndows/XP
Review: I own this modem (soon to be "owned"). It works OK under
Windows/98, but when I moved to Windows/XP pro, the drivers,
depending on how they were loaded, would either result in
a BSOD or an unrecoverable install error.

The email technical support was worthless. They did try
to get me to pay a fee, with the guarantee that they would
work with me until the problem was solved. I'm not willing
to throw good money after bad.

I "solved" the problem by loading the generic 56K V.90 drivers
that came with Windows/XP. This works OK, but I don't get the
V.92 features I paid for.

Before resorting to generic drivers, I tried changing the BIOS
settings: AUTO, COM1, COM2, COM4. None helped. Next, I tried
reloading the OS, and installing the modem first, before loading
other drivers. Nope. I even tried a second computer (which
uses an Athlon chip instead of a P4). Same problem; BSOD. And
these were the latest drivers, from their website.

I'm convinced, rightly or wrongly, that their driver has a bug.
Maybe I should go back to Windows/98.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Windows XP? Don't do it!
Review: If you like the color blue and the sound of your machine restarting over and over again, buy this modem. As previously reviewed- it DOES NOT work with Windows XP Pro. The latest drivers don't help. The enclosed disc is so poorly laid out it is reminiscent of a pig-sty. I expected this sort of pain with the old windows 95 days, but not with something that claims to be XP compliant. DON'T BUY THIS MODEM IF YOU RUN XP PRO!!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Awful, awful, awful!
Review: Seems to be your basic decent modem. No on-off switch, no external volume control, and no second jack for another phone. Other than that though, it's utterly fine (I can get great connect speeds).

want to determine what the maximum possible throughput is for your twisted pair? do the following:

1. go outside to the telco's customer access box (which is on most
houses these days, even ancient ones). open up the box, and plug
your laptop into the line you use for modem access (same type of
plug as always for connecting). before you can plug in, you'll
need to remove the existing plug, which is what connects your
house's wiring to the telco's wiring.

2. dial-up your isp and see what speed you can get. this is the max
speed without your house's wiring. in case it isn't obvious: your
house's wiring can seriously screw things up. i can get 52k
directly, and close to that using my house's wiring.

3. now put the customer access box back the way the phone guys had it,
and go back inside. once inside, disconnect all other phones from
the wiring & dial-up again. this max speed should be real close,
if not exactly similar, to what you saw outside. if it isn't,
you've got potentially a variety of problems in your house's
wiring, including but not limited to:

a. corroded connections somewhere
b. capacitance/inductance bleed-through, so to speak, on one of
your jacks (i actually had this - a crappy, unused, jack was
screwing things up)
c. etc.

4. once you've fixed all the above (which isn't fun), put all your
phones back on the line & try connecting again. if you don't get
the same speed as always (or pretty darn close), see a thru c above
(this time it's in one of your phones). note that phones do place
a load on the line, so don't necessarily expect exactly the same
speed as before. ...there is a real reason for buying a 2nd phone
line just for modem access...

some people just accept their connect speed as "god's will," or "the telco's fault". either of those might really be the case, but until you check you'll never know. and don't expect the telco to do all of the above for you, even if you have inside wire maintenance (they actually used to in the old days, for data-grade lines, which cost more, but these days...).

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: works flawlessly
Review: Seems to be your basic decent modem. No on-off switch, no external volume control, and no second jack for another phone. Other than that though, it's utterly fine (I can get great connect speeds).

want to determine what the maximum possible throughput is for your twisted pair? do the following:

1. go outside to the telco's customer access box (which is on most
houses these days, even ancient ones). open up the box, and plug
your laptop into the line you use for modem access (same type of
plug as always for connecting). before you can plug in, you'll
need to remove the existing plug, which is what connects your
house's wiring to the telco's wiring.

2. dial-up your isp and see what speed you can get. this is the max
speed without your house's wiring. in case it isn't obvious: your
house's wiring can seriously screw things up. i can get 52k
directly, and close to that using my house's wiring.

3. now put the customer access box back the way the phone guys had it,
and go back inside. once inside, disconnect all other phones from
the wiring & dial-up again. this max speed should be real close,
if not exactly similar, to what you saw outside. if it isn't,
you've got potentially a variety of problems in your house's
wiring, including but not limited to:

a. corroded connections somewhere
b. capacitance/inductance bleed-through, so to speak, on one of
your jacks (i actually had this - a crappy, unused, jack was
screwing things up)
c. etc.

4. once you've fixed all the above (which isn't fun), put all your
phones back on the line & try connecting again. if you don't get
the same speed as always (or pretty darn close), see a thru c above
(this time it's in one of your phones). note that phones do place
a load on the line, so don't necessarily expect exactly the same
speed as before. ...there is a real reason for buying a 2nd phone
line just for modem access...

some people just accept their connect speed as "god's will," or "the telco's fault". either of those might really be the case, but until you check you'll never know. and don't expect the telco to do all of the above for you, even if you have inside wire maintenance (they actually used to in the old days, for data-grade lines, which cost more, but these days...).

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Awful, awful, awful!
Review: The Best Data modem is one of the worst supported modems I have encountered in the 20+ years I have been using them. Outdated drivers are sure to give you a BSOD on Windows XP or Windows Server 2003. Tech Support is a joke, and I have yet to find anyone else with any idea how to make this modem work well. Buy at your own risk.


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