Indraneel Majumdar wrote:
>
> I've never seen a single thunderstorm during my 2 year stay at Goa (though
> it rained for nearly the whole time). Back at Durgapur (West Bengal) my
> GVC modem went kaput at the first rays of lightning. Interestingly, of the
> 30 odd modems which went into the dumpster in the locality none was a
> DLink.
Lightning should wipe out just about any modem. Count it a blessing that
only the modem went kaput and not the rest of the system. There are a
number of ways to protect your equipment from surges/lightning each with
limited amounts of success. Most of which would require you to open your
modem and insert some sort of varistor or zener or to be extreamly
exotic, a gas discharge tube. I'll have to read up on my power
electronics to be more specific. However there is a rather simple thing
to do. Courtesy of a book on PC HARDWARE by Mark Minasi. Make a couple
of knots (3-4) in the wires leading up to the modem. (telephone as well
as power supply remember lightning is not very choosey) If your wire is
still (knots are imperative) long enough, wind or coil it tightly
together, more the coils better the protection. This will make the surge
or lightning act against itself. Your wire may get burned due to the
energy dissipated in it but Mark Minasi claims that the hardware will be
safe.
>
> \Indraneel
>
> On Fri, 16 Feb 2001, Rajesh Fowkar wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Feb 15, 2001 at 09:30:40PM +0530, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
> >
> > >V Suresh rearranged electrons thusly:
> > >
> > >> Which modem is the cheapest and can also be configured under linux easily?
> > >
> > >DLink is cheap and best (as the saying goes)
> >
> > DLink / GVC. I am using GVC 33.6 modem for the last 2 years on Linux. No
> > problems :-)
> >
It also goes without saying that external modems are easiest of all. For
a beginner like myself, no configurations needed, at least none that I
can remember. I use a D-Link for 2 reasons 1) Cheapest and quite stable
even on Goan telephone lines. 2) A life time warranty (not actually sure
about this) just get your modem replaced if anything goes wrong due to a
manafacturing defect.
Besides the modems are locally assembled here in Goa and a couple of my
friends work in D-Link. :o)
mario
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