Creative Labs Modem Blaster V.92 PCI with Speaker Phone (Internal DI5631)

List Price: $83.48 Discount Price: $24.99

Features:

• Browse the Internet and download Web data FASTER with the new V.44 compression standard
• Log on to the Internet faster with QuickConnect
• Place and receive phone calls while maintaining your Internet connection with Modem-on-hold
• Backwards compatible with existing V.90 ISP standard

Customer Reviews:

Gone, but not forgotten! [Posted on 2004-04-24]
This modem worked great for us with Win XP, however - after uninstalling this modem and going on to DSL, the darn MODEM ON HOLD UTILITY won't leave me alone. I don't remember ever asking the install to load this. It did, though, and now it won't go away! I would love to know how to uninstall this! I did not ever use it in the first place. It comes up in my system tray over and over and I have to close it down every time I restart my computer and I can't even find it in my system! I HATE programs like this that hide from me and I have no control over them... especially when they are useless! Grrr...

Does what it's supposed to, but didn't improve my connection [Posted on 2004-07-30]
I bought this modem to replace my old v90 modem. This modem works fine, but it didn't improve my connection. I still connect at the same 40-43kb/s. I even tried it with two different ISPs, same effect. I even changed the phone line going into the modem and no change. Oh well, it was worth a try anyway, but I didn't expect any miracles.

The installation was easy. Especially since I took another reviewer's advice and downloaded the XP driver from the Creative website before removing my old modem.

Overall, it does what it's suposed to do, but I wouldn't recomend getting it if you want higher connection speed, unless your ISP supports v.92 or you have a modem less than 56k.

The speakerphone software was a frustration to me [Posted on 2004-08-12]
I purchased this modem for the speakerphone feature, but, despite dozens of hours trying to make it work, I have yet to be successful with the speakerphone. I found the software to be incompatible with MS Outlook--and even caused serious corruptions in my XP system.

It could've been easier [Posted on 2005-07-09]
If you are replacing an existing modem with the ModemBlaster V.92 PCI Model DI5631, DON'T follow the instructions included in the box!

I'm still a bit dazed and confused from the slugfest I had with this modems installation so I'm not going to recall every detail of it and the various problems I encountered, but I can tell you generally how I'd do it if I had to do it over again.

I read all the previous posts here some of them a couple years old and so I thought surely Creative has gotten the correct driver shipped with their product by now. I thought I'd follow the manufacturers' instructions and be safe right? Wrong!

This modem comes with a Creative CD that should have had the current driver included along with the software...well, the files inside the XP folder on this CD are different than the driver on their website, I believe them to be generic and they won't recognize your card as a ModemBlaster (don't be confused by the date of the driver on their website, even though it's dated as a couple years old that is the current driver).

For replacing an existing modem try this:

Download the correct driver from Creative's site, save it and don't install it yet.
Uninstall your modems drivers and any other traces of it you can find. Check to make sure that no sign of it is found in the device manager or in the control panel under the two icons MODEMS and PHONE AND MODEM OPTIONS. You may want to at this time see if you have anything under your Program Files folder that belongs to your old modem and get rid of it as well.
Shut down PC, unplug, remove modem card.
Restart your PC with NO modem cards in it.
Install the driver file you downloaded from Creative which as of this writing is DI5361WinXPDRV.exe.
Shut off your PC and unplug.
Install ModemBlaster PCI card.
Restart PC, if all goes well, the card will be recognized as a ModemBlaster and not a generic.

Insert Creative CD and install software, you don't need to register when it tries to coerce you to.
It may ask you for your Win XP disc because it needs the file unidrv.dll. If your PC only came with a restore disc like me, you won't be able to find the file in there, so in lieu of that just run a search on your PC and you'll find it in two locations (yes, that's right, it's somewhere already on your PC) then you can direct it to copy it from either of those two locations where the search utility found them.

That's what I should have done. I can't figure out why Creative wouldn't want to eliminate mass confusion by shipping the correct driver and some decent instructions.

I bought this modem for the full duplex SpeakerPhone feature only. I rated it based on its poor installation only, not the card performance which I have yet to evaluate, it's possible the card could've been five stars had Creative been a little more thoughtful.

UPDATE: The Software included for the Speakerphone is named SuperVoice V2.2. Well, its unstable so I go to their website to see if updates are available and find out they're not and it's no longer compatible with the current versions of XP. Thanks Creative.

The silent voice modem [Posted on 2006-01-21]
Sorry, guys, but after about 90 minutes with this thing on a newer XP system... The packaged software would never acknowledge that the modem was on Com 4, but maybe that was because ALL of the Com ports remained grayed out and unavailable during the attempted install. Windows XP modem diagnostics assured me that when seen as a Generic modem it was indeed on Com 4, and was working properly (it would dial with the XP dialer)... Downloaded the newer (?) install file from Creative (you'll need Google to find it, and there's no online manual, no pictures or drawings), still had to refer to the CD during that install for the XP driver. Got the system to see a Creative Labs Modem Blaster and it still wouldn't work... Loooong story, but all I ever accomplished was a system lockup. Actually, SEVERAL system lockups. I never did see the voice software--it never installed. Maybe I should have tried for another hour, done the Com 5 / IRQ / tech support (?) dance, but give me a break.

I need a quality full duplex speakerphone out of this, so I'm going to the Multitech MT5634ZPX-PCI-U which at least has an online manual, drawings, software that looks as if it MAY work, an on board processor, the promise of that speakerphone and real tech support. By the way, if you go looking for a Multitech, "NV" in the item description means "No Voice" (they build with and without), something certain vendors seem to not understand (like, they leave NV off of the otherwise identical item description and ship the wrong modem). Multitech builds a lot of modems, so just be sure of what you're looking at.

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