Shut up modem!

[wiltrot]

Hi ya’ll
There’s this thing with the modem dialing out all the time. We have one server and 15 workstations with one work station sharing the Internet connection. The server is on 24/7 and when I turn on the workstation that has the modem everything is normal. But as soon as I turn on another workstation and Windows is loaded the modem starts dialing out (without ever making a connection) and will do this all the time until I turn off the computer. I guess with the way some of these programs work (wanting to connect to the Internet to talk to their maker) are causing the problem. What say you?

[mjc]

Get thee to an exorcist........or at least few scans from a good AV and anti-trojan....maybe a HijackThis (http://mjc1.com/mirror/hjt/) scan would be a good idea too.

[wiltrot]

Thanks mjc. For the time being I told them not to turn on any of the other workstations, until the workstation with the modem is connected to the Internet. This precludes the modem from redialing continuously. Later on tonight I'll run AVG Pro. in DOS mode on a few of the workstations, install SpywareBlaster and also do the "hijack this". Also I'll do some trouble shooting with some of the legit programs running in the back ground.

[Paul Komski]

Dont know if this could be related but I have recently installed both IIS and MySQL Server on a Win98 box. If I queried the database from another PC on the LAN there was a horrible delay which I couldn't understand but which was soon found to be caused by the PC (that was running the SQL server) attempting to dial the internet - but with the dial-up dialog just waiting to be OK'd.

This was resolved by changing the IE setting (Tools -> Internet Options -> Connections) from "Always Dial My Default Conection" to "Never Dial A Connection". There is now no delay in running the queries and no more attempted dial-ups.

Don't ask me why the request from the LAN caused the attempted dial-up since this is a fairly new project I am working on.