Modem powers DOWN when dialing UP!!!

I've recently thrown together a system from mostly old Win98 vintage hardware I had lying around, but I installed a US Robotics external USB modem that was about a year old and had worked fine with one of my Win XP Home systems. The modem, drivers and modem software seem to install without a hitch in the Win 98 SE system I threw together but then (cue Twilight Zone music ...and cue the shade of Rod Serling) ... "You're traveling through another dimension...next stop...The Modem Zone!"

Darn thing works fine for a day or day and a half and then, when it's trying to dial UP to my ISP it powers DOWN -- i.e. the power light on the modem goes out after it's transmitted about 4 tones/numbers. Have tried rebooting, uninstalling/reinstalling but once it does that nothing I've tried has made any difference. The power light comes on again after a reboot, but as soon as I try to dial up to my ISP the modem again cuts its own throat and turns off the power before it's even dialed all seven digits!

The only way I've been able to fix it has been to repartition/reformat the drive, reinstall Win98 SE, hardware drivers, and, of course, antivirus, antispyware, firewall and a few utilities -- all a real pain in the neck just to get another day or two of modem use and then......shudder! I hear that Modem Zone music again!!!!

I've done three installs of the 98 OS now and hope that someone has a suggestion within the next 24 hours before I have to do this all over yet again! (My two Win XP systems are back in Connecticut and I'm in Michigan just now so I can't use them to get online.)

This system has a Gigabyte GA-6VXE7+ motherboard, a Pentium 3 @ 800 MHz, 512 megs of RAM, two IDE hard drives (60 and 45 Gigs), a Sound Blaster Live! Value sound card, a Gainward/Cardex GeForce2 AGP Graphics card with...OMG!...32 megs of RAM (no wonder I'm in the Twilight Zone! ) and (big drum roll!) an AOpen 16X DVD burner (the only new piece of hardware in this otherwise mostly old collection of parts -- though as I said above, the "Twilight Zoning" US Robotics modem is only about a year old and was working fine in one of my XP systems). The US Robotics modem is a 5633a and is plugged directly into a USB connector on the back of the system. And it's the only USB device hooked up to the system.

The one weak link in the chain is the power supply which is only rated at about 250 watts. But it worked fine before with about the same amount of hardware installed (except for the second hard drive hooked up now) and given the modest graphics card and cpu plus the fact that the modem works quite well for a day or so each time I reformat/reinstall everything it doesn't seem likely to me that it's a power problem.

I've just downloaded the latest drivers from the US Robotics site and hope that may cure this strange problem, but in case that doesn't solve it....HELP!!! I think I hear that man's voice again. ("You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension of NO sight, and NO sound, NO downloads and NO online forums! Next stop at the signpost up ahead -- the DEAD MODEM ZONE!!!" (cue theme music)

 

Well, sure...250 watts IS pretty puny by today's standards but given it's only an 800 MHz cpu with 500 megs of ram and a low end graphics card....and given that the problem ONLY occurs about a day or day and a half after installing the modem I really didn't/don't think that's the source of the problem as I wrote above. And now I've established the culprit! I downloaded and installed new modem drivers from the USR website and...for the very first time I was able to successfully uninstall (using an included uninstall executable included with the new drivers) and reinstall the modem and drivers and successfully dial up to my ISP without having to wipe my HD and reinstall Windows and all my software!

Now I just have to wait and see if the problem occurs yet again. If it does, at least now I'm confident I can clean things out and reinstall routinely if needed.

Thanks for the observation about the power and rest assured if I plunk any additional hardware into this system I will upgrade the power supply.