Customer Rating:  
Summary: USR quality gone down hill? My experinces.
Comment: OK, flashback to about a year ago. I moved to a rural area, with marginal, at best, phone line quality. I was using a cheapo $10 lucent v.90 winmodem at the time, and decided that to make the best of what I had (I can't get broadband here) I'd invest in a decent modem. I am an IT industry professional, and the word on the street was USR made a solid, reliable product. So I bought the best PCI modem USR had to offer, the Performance Pro. Connect speed stayed about the same,(around 44K) but throughput doubled. Flash-forward. I recently fried my old USR PP, (oops) and bought a new one. To say the least, I am less than impressed. The new modem connects consistantly at 24K or less, and throughput is equally bad. Driver up-to-date? Yes. Same for Firmware. No amount of init string tweaking, enabling/disabing settings, protocols, etc. will correct. As a sanity check, I reinstalled my cheapo V.90 (I am using it now), and am once again getting reasonable performance, if not what I once had with my OLD USR. I can only conclude that you should seriosly think about buying this modem if you have marginal line quality as I do. USR was once THE source for good modems. I am disappointed to see this has changed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Shopping for an unreliable modem?
Comment: You found it!.I bought this modem about one year ago mostly because it worked under Linux,the modem worked properly for 2 months and then suddenly quit working,all i got was a "NO DIAL TONE" error,of course i did check all the connections but still no luck.
Again about 2 weeks ago i installed it on my new home built computer running Windows XP and it worked flawlessly for an hour and then i get disconnected,now when i tried to log on to my ISP i get the NO DIAL TONE error again every time(again my phone line and cable connections are OK.).The USR.COM web site offers no help,they do not even have a driver for Windows XP available yet(Sept./2002!),so i went to Best Buy and bought this [$$$]Diamond SupraMax PCI Winmodem and i am back on the net again,my connection speed seems a bit slower(44.0 Kbps) but for a cheap Winmodem is OK.My advice(based on my own experience): stay away from U.S.Robotics,Best Data and Creative modems regardless their prices.Good luck.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Painless Windows XP Install, Painful Upgrade to V.92
Comment: I bought this hardware modem a few weeks ago after a bad experience with a software modem. On my Windows XP system, installation was a snap. I inserted the card and turned on the system; the system recognized the card and automatically installed the necessary drivers. I didn't even need to open the enclosed CDs. Since installation, I've consistently connected at 52 kbps. (I can't vouch for similarly trouble-free installation under Linux, DOS, NT, etc.)My problem: upgrading the modem to support the V.92 standard. If your ISP also supports the V.92 standard, the upgrade provides your modem with a few neato features, none of which I've tested. However, I did try to upgrade, and that was a pain. You have to know the product id (3CP5610A) rather than the product name to download the upgrade, and you have to use U. S. Robotics' Control Center software to install it. I had no luck with Control Center, so I tried to install the upgrade manually. Eventually, I succeeded, but without the help of U. S. Robotics: their website provided no useful information. This may not be representative of their software and technical support in general, but I took it as a bad omen. In short, in my experience, the hardware is good, but the software and the technical support are bad. Buy this only if you're willing to rely on your system (or your wits) to perform the installation.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Computer Consultant
Comment: Installed with absolutely no hassle. Connect rate jumped from 49.0 KB/sec (using another brand x2 modem) to constant 52+ speed. Download time jumped from varying 5.3 to 4.7 KB/sec to a steady constant 5.7 and higher.....as yet has not dropped below 5.7...including the download of Office XP SP1 (less than an hour) and Web Cam update file (20 meg plus) in just slightly over an hour. Quick connect and fast page displays. Excellent modem!
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Modem for Power-Users
Comment: This is an excellent modem for a power-user. I have
a complex system with both win95 and Linux. The modem
installed, got configured and worked right away with no
hitch whatsoever. And I've tried about 5 others which
would fail to work properly even in Windows.This modem is a great performer and saps no processing
power from the CPU. It's a real hardware modem not like
the cheap, windows-only ones which unfortunately have
flooded the market and make finding a good hardware one
very, very tough. Be glad that this modem still exists. Any time you replace an internal modem you are asking for
hassles. So most people's comments in that regard are
completely unjustified. Buy an external modem if you want
a slacker's life. Buy this one if you want the best
possible internal modem that works with any operating
system.
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