[ale] Modem identification and connecting

[Alex Carver]

Possibly, though it appears this complaint goes back at least to 2007
with multiple laptop brands.  Something about that smsc_ircc2 module
just blows up normal 8250/16550.  On my laptop (Toshiba Satellite 1805)
the BIOS does not have a separate IrDA option, only the single on-board
serial port.

On 11/10/2013 10:02, Boris Borisov wrote:
> Maybe it takes over IRQ I/O port. I have a old Toshiba laptop with IR and
> modem and does not have issues.
> 
> On Sunday, November 10, 2013, Alex Carver <agcarver+ale at acarver.net> wrote:
>> Nope, it was completely clean and so was the cardbus socket (the wifi
>> card works in both cardbus sockets).  Three hours of google searching
>> led me to blacklist the smsc_ircc2 module which woke up the serial ports
>> (both the on-board and the modem) and everything started working.
>> Somehow that module (used by the IrDA module) causes issues with serial
>> ports on many laptops.  I don't know why, that's probably more google
>> searching.  I don't need IrDA support (though it would be fun to play
>> with since I have several IrDA enabled devices) but it would be nice to
>> find out why smsc_ircc2 messes things up.
>>
>> On 11/10/2013 05:33, Jim Kinney wrote:
>>> Sounds like the modem is dead or maybe has some crud on the board. Try an
>>> electric cleaner spray.
>>> On Nov 9, 2013 3:47 PM, "Alex Carver" <agcarver+ale at acarver.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm tinkering with a cardbus modem I found in one of my hardware piles
>>>> (I'm still missing the actual cable but I know I have it here
>>>> somewhere).  Anyway, I'm trying to figure out the best way to see if
>>>> it's working (eg, responding to AT commands) but I can't quite seem to
>>>> get minicom to talk to it.  It's not a winmodem as far as I know.
>>>> According to dmesg, the pcmcia system sees the card, then serial_cs sees
>>>> the card and identifies it as a 16550A sittign on IRQ 3 0x3e8.  It
>>>> eventually gets assigned to /dev/ttyS2.
>>>>
>>>> So far nothing seems out of the ordinary but I just can't seem to get it
>>>> to respond to any basic commands (not even plain AT for which I should
>>>> see OK).  I know the cardbus system is working because I also have a
>>>> wireless network card in there and that's working fine.
>>>>
>>>> Ideas for probing and testing the modem?