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[X] why does X kill my modem?



Hi all...

Oh no!  He's back with another problem. :-)

This one has me really puzzled.  When I run X, I can't dial out with my
modem.  Until recently, I didn't run X very much so I pretty much forgot
about the problem.  Now I want to start using X more so the problem needs
to be solved.

My machine is a 486/133 (AMD's fast 486 chip) with VLB bus.  It has 4
serial ports (ttyS0 to S3).  ttyS0 and ttyS1 are 16450 UARTs on the
floppy/hard drive controller.  ttyS2 and ttyS3 are 16550 UARTs on a
separate card.  My system is configured like this: 

	ttyS0   serial mouse
	ttyS1   unused
        ttyS2   X10 controller  (unused most of the time)
        ttyS3   modem (USR 33.6, external)

The modem is on ttyS3 to avoid IRQ conflicts with the mouse.  I use mgetty
and run diald (v1.16.4) to bring up the connection to my ISP.  I can also
use minicom to dialup local BBSs, etc.  This all works very well when X
isn't running, so I know it isn't a hardware problem. 

THE PROBLEM:  When I start X, diald can no longer bring up my PPP
connection.  I can't use minicom to dial out.  ttyS3 is completely hosed,
i.e. the modem lights don't flicker so the modem isn't getting any
commands.  I stuck a Radio Shack RS-232 mini-tester (just LEDs on each of
the 8 lines) to watch the status of the port.  Nothing is getting through.

When I kill the X server, the port remains dead.  I can't use minicom or
get diald to bring up the PPP connection.  The only way to restore things
to normal is ctrl-alt-del.

Is there something buried in X which enables/disables the serial ports?
If so, what and where?  If not, does anyone have suggestions as to what
might be going on here?

TIA...

	Bob
-- 
Bob Billson, KC2WZ				  email: kc2wz@intercall.net
  (\       MS-DOS, you can't live with it.  You can live without it.    /)
 {|||8-                 Linux:  World domination.  Fast.             -8|||}
  (/                                                                    \}


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