Customer got his PC back from his colleague, but the modem can no longer dial out (message indicates it cannot communicate with the modem (either switched off, etc etc).

I figure its a dead modem (and I don’t have any spare ones with me), so I take it back to the workshop, and I try a new internal modem. It works, but its not easy to fit into the pci slot… I start XP, and it detects the new hardware, but I don’t have an internet connection ready at the moment, so I decide to just shutdown, put the retaining screw on the modem backplate, connect the internet, then download the correct drivers.

But once it restarts, it doesn’t detect the new hardware… in fact there is no modem to be found in device manager and using add new hardware…

I eventually realise that the retaining screw on the pci backplate is forcing the modem card to pull out (slightly), from the pci slot… and some screws holding down the motherboard have stripped threads… This looks like a badly assembled PC…

I try the original modem, and it also works if I don’t use the retaining screw.

I decide to work around this by using some brute force: I lean on the metal backplane of the case, until I can tighten the retaining screw without it moving the card in the pci slot.

After that, all is fine!