modem help

i just bought this $40 modem at radio shack its a Best Data windows internal modem 56k v.92/v.44
it was working fine the first few weeks thin i got 2 errors about the phone line and now sometimes you can hear it get a dial tone but it does not want to dial but when it does and i am connected to the internet it now only connects at 9kb's when i know it can connect faster thin 30kb's so when that started happening i though wtf? i called the phone compeny and i went through it with the internet guy and they came out and checked the lines because my old modem was hit by lighting when them storms went through the south east and so i was wondering if maybe the lighting did something to my pci slot what do you people of the geek world think i will take some pic's of the pci slots you have to take them out off the mobo to put anything in them so you can get a close up of what they look like


heres my spec's
Compaq DESKPRO
Intel Celeron 500mhz
64mb ram
16mb onbored video

 

bump does anyone know