Laptop makers post patches to fix modem problems

From...

by Matt Hamblen

(IDG) -- Both Hewlett-Packard Co. and Gateway Inc. have posted software fixes on their Web sites to address the modem freeze-ups that hit some late-model laptops February 21.

Neither company would say how many laptops were affected, although an industry analyst and the company that wrote the errant modem driver, ESS Technology Inc. in Fremont, Calif., put the number in the tens of thousands.

Patches for the HP laptops and the Gateway model have been posted on the companies' Web sites.

IDG.net INFOCENTER Computerworld main page Computerworld's topic-oriented communities Computerworld's IT career center Free daily newsletters Related IDG.net Stories PC reliability & service: Who can you trust? The SWAT team: Kill bugs dead Gateway to simplify product line, lower costs Features Cool gifts for cool nerds Mastering e-commerce by degrees Fast-track training puts nontechies in IT jobs Visit an IDG site Choose a site: IDG.net CIO Computerworld Darwin Dummies.com GamePro.com The Industry Standard ITWorld.com InfoWorld.com JavaWorld LinuxWorld Macworld Online Network World Fusion PC World Publish.com SunWorld IDG.net search

One user said Tuesday that he was unaware that the HP patch was posted and was eager to download it to his HP n5000 laptop. "The driver issue is a bother," said the user, Chuck Poulos, a minister at Anadarko Church of Christ in Anadarko, Okla. He uses the laptop for his work in dial-up mode and said he had to "dance a bit" by back-dating the computer to February 20 to avoid the date problem that crashed the modem. He said he wishes HP could have contacted him individually.

ESS officials also posted a generic patch on the ESS Web site shortly after the problem was discovered February 21. The patch was for machines running Windows 98 Special Edition, Windows 2000, Windows ME and Windows NT. The modems stopped working because of human error in upgrading modem drivers for new machines, ESS officials said last week.

ESS wouldn't name any of the manufacturers of laptops with the problem, although Gateway and HP described the glitch on their Web sites. Originally, HP said the problem affected only its Pavilion n5000 and Omnibook XE3 laptops, which have been on the market since November. But the patches posted yesterday are meant to correct modem failures for those models as well as certain models of the OmniBook XE2 and Pavilion n3000 and XH000 series notebooks. In addition, HP had patches for only Windows 98 SE and Windows ME, with a statement that Windows 2000 didn't require a patch. Windows NT wasn't affected either, an HP spokeswoman said.

HP apologized for the inconvenience customers experienced due to the modem failure. "We were waiting for year 2000 problems a while ago, but they didn't hit until February in '01," said Hilary Glann, worldwide marketing manager at HP. The company was scrambling to fix machines in large companies as well as those in warehouses and on store shelves, she said.

Gateway posted its patch Friday. A spokeswoman said the affected machine was the Solo 3350, which started selling in September. She described the laptop as an ultraportable and said it "represents a relatively small portion of [Gateway's] overall notebook mix."

Sunday and Monday, HP had a statement on its site saying a patch was ready Friday, although technical support workers at HP confirmed it wasn't ready until Monday, two days later. Glann said the confusion was because of a problem posting the patch to the HP site.

The need for the patch won't cause the laptop makers or ESS any financial problems, the companies said. However, analysts described the problem as a symptom of too many changes in laptop models.

"This issue is like any quality issue that causes disruption. It is serious in that it causes the notebook to be cycled through repair," said analyst Ken Dulaney at Gartner Group Inc. in Stamford, Conn. "That involves time, loss of productivity ... and there was the loss of time that the user experienced before they could detect the problem.

"The pace of change for notebooks is too fast, and these things are bound to happen," Dulaney added. He noted that there have been memory and battery problems with laptops over the years and described Toshiba Corp. and IBM machines as having "markedly better quality records" than Compaq Computer Corp. and Dell Computer Corp. The modem driver problem for HP is an "aberration," he said. Since Gateway doesn't sell many machines to large corporations, the company hasn't been under Gartner scrutiny.

Poulos said he has been a loyal HP customer, having purchased three HP notebooks and a tower computer as well as five other HP machines. He said he turned to HP for lower cost and because the company has been around longer than almost all of the other laptop makers. He said he was confident HP would have a permanent solution.

Toshiba laptop to use low-power Intel chip
February 28, 2001
New notebooks offer biometric protection
February 2, 2001
CNNdotCOM Technofile: Laptop video editing
January 6, 2001
IBM adds online diagnostic tools to its PCs
January 4, 2001
Intel readies 1-GHz notebook chip for early 2001
October 12, 2000

PC reliability & service: Who can you trust?
(PCWorld.com)
The SWAT team: Kill bugs dead
(PCWorld.com)
Gateway to simplify product line, lower costs
(IDG.net)
Toshiba laptop to use low-power Intel chip
(IDG.net)
IBM launches combined digital notepad and notebook
(InfoWorld.com)
Security at your fingertips
(PCWorld.com)
Top 15 notebook PCs
(PCWorld.com)
IBM offers 'smart' diagnostic tool
(IDG.net)

HP Notebook PC Patch
Gateway Modem Patch

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.