Re: [hylafax-users] RocketModem III

[Lee Howard <faxguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 2003.09.30 23:42 Rafael Caceres wrote:
> We are looking at getting 6 line RocketModem III (the newest ones) to
> consolidate our Hylafax servers into a single machine. Has anyone had
> good/bad experiences with it?

The RocketModem IIIs were just *barely* released.  I beta-tested an 
8-port RM III for Comtrol with HylaFAX during July, August, and 
September.

I've used RocketModems, RocketModem IIs, and also now RocketModem IIIs.

RocketModem IIs were nicer than RocketModems in that the firmware was 
"upgradeable"... so any firmware updates that Comtrol released were 
able to be applied.  However, the firmware was "loaded" every time the 
system booted (module loaded) and so it made for slow booting.  I never 
had any problems with that, but I'd imagine that some environments may 
have had difficulty... especially if the on-disk firmware somehow 
became corrupted before it was "loaded" into the card at boot-time.  
RocketModem IIs were also PCI, so that was nice.

RocketModem IIIs also have upgradeable firmware, but the firmware stays 
loaded into the card, thus eliminating the boot-time delay and the 
firmware corruption risk I mentioned.  RocketModem IIIs also support 
Class 1.0 (unlike the IIs and earlier cards).  So whenever HylaFAX ends 
up supporting Class 1.0 - V.34 should theoretically be possible with 
the RM III.

The RM III does have a Class 2 (not Class 2.0 or 2.1).  And in my 
testing it was good, but there were some occasional errors.  The Class 
1 support was just as good (bullet-proof) as the Class 1 support with 
earlier RocketModems, though, and I'd recommend that all RocketModems, 
including the new IIIs, be used in Class 1.  I generally only ever 
recommend Class 2 usage, anyway, when it has features that HylaFAX's 
Class 1 doesn't.  This isn't the case with RocketModems.

The only technical down-side to the RocketModem III is that, although 
it works in 3.3V or 5V PCI slots the motherboard must support PCI v2.2 
or support "optional" features of PCI v2.1.  So, in other words, the 
motherboard will need to be use Intel 810/815/820/830/etc., VIA Apollo 
Pro Plus, compatible, or newer chipsets.  Thus, anything new is fine; 
you'll need to be wary with older motherboards.

Lee.

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