Internal Modem Connectivity trouble

[AylenS]

I've got a newish HP Probbook 4310s, and have been using the internal modem for connectivity (vodacom). The trouble is, the connection drops regularly, often every few minutes, but the Connection Manager shows a strong signal (4-5 bars!). I took it into Vodacom, wonderin if it could be the sim, but they weren't particualrly helpful. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions please?

 

[Colin62]

In my experience the Vodacom network is far from stable. Unlike the rest of the world, where the connection between you and the tower is the least stable part, on Vodacom's network you will often find that you have a good signal, and are connected but with no data throughput. Quite often there is no DNS server responding to your requests. All I can suggest is to keep disconnecting and reconnecting till it works again. Frequent (frustrating) calls to 155 sometimes make a difference, in that you can swear at a real human being for a while instead of just swearing at your computer, although it's not likely to make much difference to your connection.

 

[nuyork]

@AylenS: Did you get this notebook through Vodacom themselves? Or buy it outside of Vodacom, and just popped a Vodacom SIM card in it? Have you tried an MTN SIM card as well?

 

[VC-1]

I have had the same problem with my HP4520s notebook useing HP Connect Manager version 3.1.1.72 using Win 7 Pro 64bit, this would only happen now and again after changing my Power Option to High Performance with AC on charge mode. I put the problem down to Vodacom BTS user Phising/dropping users due load capacity.
Hope this helps.

 

[AylenS]

I got it through my company, not through Vodacom. I'vve have the sSIM card for quite a while, and i just popped it in. No, I haven't tried an mtn SIM card in it yet. Other folk on the office who ahve tried theinternal modem also find the stability to be a problen and have gone onto usb modems. I started with an external modem (e272), but when the laptop started responding with "unknown usb device" I decided to give the internal modem a try.

 

[AylenS]

Mmmm. you;ve made me wonder if its someting to do with the pawer management. I'll fiddle with that a bit and see if it helps.

BTW what about using an external antenna? Can I hook one up somehow?

 

[nuyork]

Well from personal experience, and I have no idea why this is, but I have always found that the built in embedded 3G modems to always give problems with connectivity. When switching from embedded 3G modem to a USB 3G stick, I don't experience the same connectivity issues.

I have no idea what the problem is with these embedded 3G modems and why they give so many problems. Maybe faulty hardware, bad design, loose aerial connection, I'm not sure.

Any unfortunately no, you cannot connect an external aerial to notebooks with embedded 3G modems. Well not to my knowledge. Unless your notebook has got a connection for an external 3G aerial, but I haven't seen something like this before.

 

[AylenS]

A lot of people seem to say the same thing nuyork. However, after fiddling a bit with the power settings, my internal modem is much more stable. Perhaps its very sensitive to decrease power? Heres hoping it stays ok. If not I'll go for an external modem. Do you preferences are far as the external ones go?