Wednesday, January 11, 2012

USRobotics USR325610B Review

Read top consumer ratings: USRobotics USR325610B






Ratings
Category: Personal Computers
Brand: USRobotics
Model: USR325610B
Availability: FREE SHIPPING (USA)
List Price : N/A
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USRobotics USR325610B Consumers Report


USRobotics USR325610B Review by P. David "Moose" (USA)

This modem connects well, I have no complaints with connections, it's the call waiting feature. That feature fails in XP for me and the tech support is ridiculous. To make this feature sort of work, it needs a string, but US Robotics tech support doesn't seem to know that. I had that feature working for over a year and then with I upgraded their Call Notification, it failed completely and I can't make that feature work at all anymore. I gave this modem 1 star because the only reason I purchased it was for the on hold feature.


USRobotics USR325610B Review by Brian A. Wolters (Cabot, Arkansas)

I've had a love/hate relationship with USR modems. When they were first breaking out the 19,200 modems in the very early 90's, they couldn't be beat. And they continued to improve up until the X2/K56Flex and software vs. hardware modem battles. Then, their performance went way down, mainly due to the X2 problems.

Now comes the Performance Pro v.92 modem. I did a lot of research and it seemed that this had what I needed: v.92 and hardware based. So, I popped it in and powered up the PC. Windows XP plug-in-play found it to be a "generic" V.90 USR modem, so I had to load the "new" drivers. The drivers were not very new and it appears, to this day, it is the ONLY driver for the modem. Once the correct driver is loaded, the modem worked.

With my ISP not being v.92 yet, the Internet Hold feature didn't work. I tested it with my backup, v.92 ISP and it worked flawlessly. Also, on the v.90 only ISP, my connection was much slower than the V.92 ISP. In addition, my old software modem seemed to have faster connections as well. Also of note, if you start to dial up and you press CANCEL on the Windows DUN dial up window, it will not immediately stop the process. It sometimes takes 1-2 minutes to actually let you continue. This is not a good sign.

I wanted the peace of mind that I had a very good modem because it was hardware based and had good reviews. However, I am just overall disappointed because of the lack of driver support, connection speeds and support from USR. V.92 ISP users may want to take a look but V.90 users stay away!



USRobotics USR325610B Review by M. J. Grumet (Boise, Idaho U.S.A.)

When my old Aceex ISA hardware-controlled modem started malfunctioning a few years ago, I bought the USR 5610B to replace it. It is still working great.
I'm not sure why my experience is so much better than some other reviewers. It could be that I never used the CD. Windows XP booted up, assigned it to COM 3, and it just works. Maybe there are fancy features that the Windows-bundled driver won't provide, but since my dialup number is just v.90 anyway, I've left well enough alone. Connections of 49.2kbps or 48kpbs are common, which is good for my telephone line.
I also had SuSE 8.2 in my old computer. The USR PCI modem was more tricky to configure than the old ISA modem. I had to run YAST twice to get it to create a ttyS4 (equivalent to Windows COM3), but then after another try it recognized the modem. Once configured, it has been reliable.

When I bought a new computer I figured I should have a new modem. I tried the Creative Modem Blaster serial external. After a few days I salvaged the USR 5610B from my old computer and put it in the new one. Once again, it's great on v.90 with the Windows XP Home SP2 drivers. I haven't had time to put in a new linux distro yet.

Edit: Now I have done some linux experiments.

SUSE 10.1: The installation could not autodetect the modem. I could get a good connection logged in as root, with modem manually set to ttyS1. As a user it took some command line tinkering to get permission to use the modem, but then it worked. I regard that as a deficiency in SUSE 10.1 to make user jump through such hoops to access a modem.

MEPIS 6 Beta3: Works fine with KPPP set to ttyS4. This distro has some other problems, but compatibility with this modem is not one of them.

Ubuntu Dapper Drake: Did not work with this modem. All settings were tried, and ttyS4 was not an available setting. Some linux enthusiasts would say that the hardware failed the distro. My opinion is that the distro failed hardware that has proven itself in other distros.

I won't remove a star because of the failure of some distros to work with this modem, but if you are in love with those distros, this is not the modem for you.

Important to know: Some new distros set modem speed by default to 921,600 bps. That setting will actually slow a 56K modem to 9600 bps. To get good results you should manually select 115,200 or 57,600 bps.

More Reviews...

USRobotics USR325610B:: Description


The V.92 standard brings three key features to 56K technology - Modem on Hold, Quick Connect and V.PCM Upstream. Modem on Hold makes the most of Call Waiting, Caller ID, and Voice Mail services from your phone company. The modem software will alert incoming calls while you are online, and tell you who is calling. If you response the call, the modem suspends your online session during your conversation, and lets you resume it afterwards without redialing. If you ignore the call, it will be routed to your voice mail. Quick Connect reduces the time it takes to make a connection to your service provider. By remembering the line conditions from the previous connection, the modem can bypass portions of its training sequence and get you online faster. V.PCM Upstream allows the modems upstream communication to reach speeds up to 48 Kbps. You choose whether to maintain the fastest possible downstream speed (up to 53K) or whether to balance your connection for somewhat slower downstream and faster upstream



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