Re: [hylafax-users] Hylafax and Comtrol RocketModemIII

[Lee Howard <faxguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 2005.01.20 10:47 Rubin Bennett wrote:
> Hello all,
> I'm experiencing a rather unpleasant issue with an installation I
> recently upgraded of Hylafax.
>
> The backstory:  Client has a system with Mandrake 9.2 (upgraded a few
> times over the years), HylaFax 4.1.5 and a Comtrol RocketModemII 8
> port
> ISA modem board.  They're been happily receiving faxes through a 4
> line
> hunt group for nearly 3 years.
>
> The server that they're running is old and tired, and so I built a new
> server for them with Mandrakelinux 10.1, HylaFax 4.2.0 a
> RocketModemIII
> PCI 4 port card (I had no issues with the old board; so if it ain't
> broke...).

I have used many RocketModem and RocketModem II cards in HylaFAX 
servers over the last few years.  I also beta-tested the RocketModem 
III card just before it was released by Comtrol.

Comtrol changed their DSP provider, though, for the RocketModem III 
cards.  The technology is technically superior to that of the older 
RocketModems, but hardware/firmware technology isn't a big deal for 
faxing, especially in Class 1.  So it's fair to look at the RocketModem 
II as a continuation of the RocketModem, but the RocketModem III isn't 
exactly a clear continuation of the RocketModem II.

I tested the RocketModem III in-house on a development server for 
probably two months.  I did report some problems to Comtrol, but they 
weren't serious, if I remember correctly.  Everything seemed to be fine.

Comtrol had been encouraging me to move the card into production use, 
so at the next opportunity (which was probably three or four months 
later, after the product released) I did deploy it into production use 
into a new P4 server with an Intel chipsetted motherboard (my 
development box has a PIII with a VIA chipset).  No sooner had I done 
this when I started having lots of problems.  I tried switching from 
Class 1 to Class 2 but problems persisted, only looking different.  I 
saw lots of "Failed to properly detect high speed data carrier".  Also, 
from time-to-time the modems would lock up and require a reboot to 
reset them.

I ended up putting an external modem, a Hayes Accura onto the first 
line of the hunt group (pulling the line out of the RocketModem III).  
Since most of the faxes came in on that line, virtually all of the 
problems went a way.  I did some testing between the RocketModem III 
and the Hayes that I hadn't been able to do in-house at that time (due 
to the RM III requiring it to be connected to a telco/PBX for 
functionality - you can't send faxes between ports with just a cable 
between them).  It turns out that there was some bizarre 
incompatibility between the modulators on the RMIII (Conexant chipset) 
and the Hayes (Rockwell chipset) which prevented one of them from 
sending to the other (I don't remember right now which direction was 
the problem).

In any case, I reported all of these problems to Comtrol, we e-mailed 
back and forth a bit with various testing, and in the end it seems like 
the fix needed to come from the DSP.  After about 3 months, maybe more, 
I did get some new firmware to test, but the problems didn't go away.  
So, as it looked like it was going to take an extremely long time to 
get it things fixed, I replaced the RMIII and Hayes with a RocketModem 
II, and I haven't had any problems since then.

I haven't really been able to determine why things were so bad.  I was 
thinking that maybe it was a combination of the RM III and the 
particular motherboard chipset that I had going on that production 
server.  But I have heard reports from others here that they have also 
had problems with the RM III.

During the time I was working with it I was able to notice that the 
RMIII always corrupts transmitted modulated data at regular intervals 
(it was like every 90 ms or something like that).  So it seemed like 
something deep within the DSP was messing with stuff.  This didn't 
explain the receiving problems, but I had hoped that it was enough to 
indicate a common problem.

> However, when I cut over to the new server/ board combo, we started
> experiencing lots of t.30 02 timeouts/ "Failed to properly detect high
> speed data carrier" when running the modems in Class1 mode.  I then
> changed the modems to run as class2, and instead of getting timeouts
> or
> data carrier errors, I get "normal and proper end of communications",
> and incoming faxes fail.
>
> I seem to be experiencing this issue with about 10-15% of the incoming
> faxes; there are some senders who are not able to fax to us at all.

That sounds very familiar to the percentage of problems I was seeing 
with mine.

> Of
> course, Murphy's law being what it is, every sending Fax machine I've
> been able to get my hands on works flawlessly... arrgh.

I was able to reproduce some of the problems, but nothing that I ever 
did made a difference.  It certainly didn't seem like something that I 
could fix or work around.

> Does anyone out there have any light to shed on this?  I can send my
> modem configs from both servers if that would help.  I'm hoping that
> someone will take pity on me and give me a quick answer, because my
> client is fairly testy about this issue (they pretty much run their
> business by their incoming Faxes).
>
> I did search the archives for anything to do with the errors I'm
> seeing
> and found a couple of hits, but nothing that screamed "here's the
> problem".  I've spent over a day mucking about with various iterations
> of my modem configs, to no avail.  I've also sent Comtrol mail about
> this, as there were some notes on their support forums that looked
> suspiciously similar to what I'm seeing.
>
> For what it's worth, I don't think this is a HylaFax issue per se, but
> I'm hoping that one of you gurus will know a workaround i can put in
> my
> modem config files.

The best that I could suggest to you would be to try a VIA chipsetted 
motherboard (Apollo Pro Plus or better, since PCI v2.1 is required).  
If that doesn't work, then you may need to look at a different modem, 
unfortunately.

Lee.

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