Tag Archives: mf636

bigpond nextG 7.2 MF636 usb modem: Vista problems

Computer Aid Posted on by

Another problem with the bigpond 7.2 usb modems. This time its a Vista problem.

Customer has an intel-based laptop (HP), but cannot seem to make it work.

Whats supposed to happen: plug in the usb modem, and at first, it will appears to the computer as a USB drive, and it will auto-run the install software.

What actually happens: Vista cannot detect the USB drive (so it cannot auto-run the setup application). In fact I cannot even manually copy the setup files from the USB drive.

I plug the 7.2 USB drive into my XP laptop, and it tries to run the Bigpond setup files automatically. OK, I cancel the Setup, and copy the Bigpond setup files to my own usb drive.

I plug both my USB drive, and the bigpond 7.2 USB into the Vista laptop.

I manually run the setup. It doesn’t seem to work correctly, but at least I can now go into the Control Panel -> Programs and settings … and uninstall the bigpond software correctly.

After a reboot, I can now plug in the Bigpond 7.2 USB drive, and its detected correctly. It auto-runs the setup, and before long, the bigpond software is running almost normally.

The problem now, is that the bigpond software wants to register with bigpond… fine, but after a short while, the software says that the registration failed.

I call Bigpond support, and I get some interesting solutions:

Shift-Click on the Options tab on the Bigpond Status window… This reveals a hidden diagnosis tab.

In the diagnosis tab, I tick the box that says: “signup has been completed for this device”.

I’m then told to go to the Account tab, and to enter the username (email address), and password.

After that, I can finally connect to the internet…

bigpond nextG 7.2 MF636 usb modem doesn’t like an AMD PC

Computer Aid Posted on by

A customer recently got a bigpond MF636 USB modem for her Compaq desktop PS (she can’t get ADSL).

She Installs the modem, and it works for about an hour, and then stops connecting to the internet.

I’ve not seen this model before, and find it works in an iteresting way:

– When you first plug it in, it acts like a USB drive, with the all the driver software automatically installing itself.

– After the driver software installs, it resets itself into USB modem mode (and the USB drive is no longer visible).

In this case, however, the software says that it can see the modem, it detects a signal strength of 4/5 bars, but pressing the connect button will have different effects, depending on which usb port you plug it into.

Mostly, it will appear to be connected, but no browsing, no ping, no email.

At first I thought: its trend thats interfering as usual.

But removing trend and resetting the windows firewall doesn’t fix anything.

I eventually start running out of ideas.

The only thing thats unusual about this PC is that it uses an AMD CPU, and that the USB modem (and the drivers) are probably less than 1 year old.

So its possible that the modem drivers have not been tested much on AMD hardware.

All I can suggest is that the customer returns the modem, and gets a different brand (a few days later, I’m told that the different modem worked correctly).