Ascend Archive
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(ASCEND) Everyone go buy a fan.

As most people on the list here know, I've been a big MAX supporter
since I got my first one over 2 years ago. Since we serve a largely
rural clientele, we've had our share of problems with K56Flex and the
local telcos, but I've never seen half the problems that many folks
relate here. Basically, all my Maxen have just "sit there and run".

After EXTENSIVE testing of the V.90 release (6.1.3), which was done by
putting it on one Max6000 and leaving it for a month, and upgrading
one of 3 in a remote PoP late at night, and downgrading it in the early
AM, switching boxes each time, for about 2 weeks, I decided that it
seemed to work well for me and upgraded every MAX4K we have.

The next day, I got reboots on one Max averaging every 32 minutes. I
finally disabled the 3 CT1s on that Max, but then started losing modems
on the other 2 at that PoP. The Max that sits in my office seemed fine.

Tech support was flooded with "can't connect", "Windows unable to find
its ass with both hands"-type errors, so we downgraded back to 5.0Ap42
and it didn't help. 2 DM12s in one Max had gone "where the woodbine
twineth" and one DM12 in another Max made frequent cameo appearances
only to vanish, pursued by furies, within an hour or so.

All the while the Max4K in my office merrily sat there and basically
just ran the hell out of 6.1.3

The Max in my COLD office, that is. The front office, where my 2
secretaries/majordomos sit has the front wall made of glass. By the
time it's comfortable in there for them, it's bloody freezing in my
office- about 65F. Well, freezing if you've just come out from under
our current 98F heat wave....which has been going on since 5 July.

So. A quick drive to the remote PoP. I unstacked (physically) the 3
Maxen, placed aluminum spacers between them, rotated them 30 degrees
from each other, turned a window fan on the "pile o'Maxen", rebooted,
and....over 13 hours later, no problems. NONE. We're now headed into
the "heat of the day" so if there are going to be problems, we'll see
them within the next 6 hours. The main harbringer is CRC errors- at
least here, when we see those start at all, we know we're getting ready
to see the reboots and/or lost modems.

Since even when all Maxen were showing all their modems and SEEMED to
be running fine, we still saw the "can't connect" and "computer not
answering" errors, along with the famous "compatible protocol" errors,
and we don't see them now, I'm tempted to say that the whole thing,
at least here, was heat-related.

We've moved 2 of the "problem" Maxen back to 6.1.3 (6pm last night) and
still see no problems, and zero CRC errors on them.

An aside...the "computer not answering" message happens to me now and
again here at home, dialing into the Max6K. If I do the "+MS=11" to
disable K56 or V.90, it goes away, but even if I remove the +MS=11 I
can never connect again, at all- until I remove the modem (in windows)
and reboot so that WIndows "finds" it again. Then it works, and I get
a good solid V.90 connect. Since this always works, and has worked for
everyone else with a "touchy" V.90 modem, I don't think it's a MAX
problem, unless, as someone mentioned before, the Max is confusing OUR
modems. I guess it's possible...

'Shot
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