[hcflinux] Problem with uploading through HCFPCI modem - pppd stalls?

[Michael Jerosch-Herold]

I am using Mandrake 9.1 on a Athlon XP 2000 machine ( 2.4.21-0.13mdk kernel
with hcfpcimodem-0.99lnxtbeta03042700k2.4.21_0.13mdk-1mdk.i586.rpm
software).

I can connect to my ISP, and get the pppd started, and then browse the
internet. The problem turns up when I send an e-mail message which has a
larger attachment (~100k or larger; have not tested this systematically as
function of attachment size). The pppd daemon seems to get stalled, and
after the attempted up-load of the message with attachment browsing also
stops working. I use Kmail and can see that progress bar for sending out the
message moves normally at the beginning and then slows down to a crawl. In
one instance I was able to send out the message with the same attachment (3
am in the morning), but otherwise the problem is pretty consistent. I always
tried the same message with the same attachment. Sending short messages to
POP server does not represent a problem. My modem initialization script uses
ATZ to initialize.

a) Are there special modem settings that I should invoke to avoid this
problem?

b) I heard that running ping in the background could avoid dropped ppp
connections?

c) Anything else that could cause this problem?

Any help would be much appreciated!

Please copy your response to jeros001 at umn.edu, as I have not subscribed to
the LINUXANT digest!

Thank you!

Michael Jerosch-Herold



University of Minnesota
Medical School
Minneapolis, MN 55455