The MWave Card One of the features on the new Aptiva series of machines is the MWave card. The MWave card provides phone answering machines with fax capabilities and sound, all incorporated into one card. This new card gives you several new features combined in one small package. 1. A sound system with CD quality stereo playback and record. 2. SoundBlaster compatibility 3. A joystick port 4. A set of telephone functions that include: a. Full duplex (two way) speaker phone b. Telephone Answering machine c. Fax Modem (14.4K bps) d. Data Modem (28.8K bps) The disadvantage of this all in one card technology is that several drivers must be loaded in order for it to work. In older systems no drivers are required in order for a modem to work, just plug it in and you were set. This is not the case with the MWave. On these systems you will notice that several calls in the system files (AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, WIN.INI, and SYSTEM.INI) refer to a directory called MMW. This is where all the drivers reside. The advantage of having these drivers loading is that upgrades will be available without having to add another card. Just insert the new driver and install it. It will upgrade the card and you will have the equivalent of a new card. Communication: The services that come pre-installed will already be setup. But, many of you will find that several of the on-lines services and communication software that are not pre-loaded will not include the MWave modem in the set-up. The questions will be "what modem will I use?" the answer will be one of the following: The Modem type: MWave modem Generic Hayes-type modem User-defined modem Hayes SmartModem 2400 Hayes modem Hayes compatible modem Baud Rate: 57,600 bps, or the maximum setting offered by your communications software. COM Port: COM 1 Sound: As stated earlier, the MWave is also a sound card. It emulates both a SoundBlaster 1.5 card and a Sound Blaster Pro card. There are different ways to set volume in a DOS, Windows or OS/2 setting. For example in a DOS game if you want to increase the volume this is the procedure you follow. 1. Exit Windows 2. Type FASTCFG at a DOS prompt. 3. Select Games and click Audio 4. Use the mouse to change the volume. 5. Any other settings can be changed this way. A few other things that might happen with the MWave modem is playing sound from a game or a CD. The sound may be interrupted. What is happening is that MWave manages the workload of the digital signal processor (DSP), the device that allows you to play sound, use telephony, etc. If you do not hear sounds from your DOS game or CD, most likely MWave is using the modem to send a file or is set to answer the telephone. Wait for these other tasks to finish; you should then hear the sounds from your game or CD. Phone: Another interesting feature about the MWave mode is its ability to discriminate between fax and voice calls. When the Aptiva Communication Center is running you can receive faxes and voice messages. The system will recognize both and put them in the appropriate place. It will also allow for hands free (speaker phone) operation. Below are a few questions and answers about this feature. Q: If I answer the telephone by picking up the handset, will I disrupt the computer's ability to discriminate between call types? A: No, answering the phone will not prevent MWave's Discriminator from trying to detect if the event is a voice or FAX call. However, it is recommended that you close the Discriminator before answering calls with the telephone attached to the computer. Q: How do I prevent the speaker phone from terminating a telephone call when my computer is set to automatically suspend after a period of time with no keyboard activity? A: To avoid having your telephone calls terminated when your computer uses the Suspend/Resume Power Management feature, double-click the Power icon in the Setup group to choose a setup that does not include activation of the suspend mode when you don't use the mouse or key- board. For installing fax software, where the MWave is not an option, use the "Generic Class 2" or another modem of this type. This modem selection will work for WinFax and WinFax Lite. The setting on the pre-installed software will work out of the box.. There are several other features of the MWave card that are too numerous to mention here. If you have an MWave card and have further questions please look in the on-line help. There is also a README file in the MMW directory. If these do not answer your questions please post a note in the appropriate Aptiva topic area. For those of you that do not have the MWave card but would like to get one, PC-Direct sells them as a PC add-on. It is compatible with most systems. If you would like to have more information about the card, please use the IBM Fax back service at 800-IBM-3395 and request document #11286. You can also call PC-Direct at 800-426-2968.