Jul 17, 2001 12:41 PM
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Anytime you plan on purchasing anything for your computer you should always research it and choose the best product for your money.
Internal: most of your internal modems today are whats called a WINMODEM which in short means it does not have a hardware UART, meaning there is no onboard hardware built onto the modem to process the incoming and outgoing data. Since there is no hardware to process this information that leaves only 1 thing to do the work SOFTWARE. this method greatly reduces the price of the modem but makes it very unstable and SLOW. This also puts alot of strain on your computer and eats up valuable PCU CYCLES, thus making your system run very slow. some modems still have a onboard UART which means there is hardware built onto the board of the modem that handles all the processing of the data and gives your processor a much needed break considering that all the applications you are running while on-line need those PCU cycles.
External: External modems are the same except they ALWAYS have an onboard UART. Saving your computer alot of PCU CYCLES and therefor greatly reducing the strain on your PC, but External Modems are so much more Expensive than internal modems and there is really no difference in the 2. With an external modem you have to pay the company for that fancy CASE around the circuit board and for painting it real pretty with their name on it. An internal modem with an Onboard UART will work just as effciently as an External modem.
Contrary to popular belief that internal modems will not work with Linux, is all fiction(or 99% of them will). if you buy a good internal modem with an onboard UART chances are it WILL WORK with linux 99%, and with linux being an open source OS and people constantly working on it they are just now starting to add to the Linux Kernel the ability to use WINMODEMS with linux. So dont buy a modem becuase its the cheapest or becuase you prefer internal or external, research it and buy the modem that best Suits your need.
