Modem doing peculiar things

I have a Smartlink 56K modem in my notebook. Since last week the computer has been acting very strangely, and the modem stopped working completely. I saved all my data on another computer, and reinstalled Windows XP on the notebook from the original installation disk. Had to download a driver for the modem from the Internet because it didn't seem to be anywhere on the disk.

Modem now says it's working properly. It dials up, but after squeaking and hissing for a few moments, a box pops up, a telephone ringing noise comes out of the computer, and the box says there's an incoming call, which I can either accept or ignore. If I accept, there's nobody on the line, and if I ignore I get an error message 777 that there is something wrong with the modem and it cannot connect. I've never seen anything like that happening before.

Any ideas, please?

Thanks.

 

A couple questions, is this XP sp2?

Did you download the drivers from your laptop manufacturer? Or from the modem manufacturer?

 

is it hooked up in the back (and to the jack/phone) correctly?

 

It is correctly connected.

I'm running Windows XP; previously I had downloaded SP2, but having reinstalled XP, I can't download the SP2 again because I can't get the modem to connect.

I downloaded the driver from the manufacturer's site, because the laptop manufacturer doesn't give any support after the first year. I have a disk with all the drivers for the notebook on it, but the computer doesn't seem able to find the right driver for the modem.

Susie

 

I played about last night and found another driver, which I installed, and then discovered that the country which the modem had set itself up for was Oman. Having now corrected that to France, it seems to be working OK.