I’m having problems with my com ports (specifically, the port that my modem is attached to) in Windows 98. Pretty much to the second, the machine goes into a hard lock 5 minutes after a successful connect. I have no problems connecting under other OSs, such as GNU/Linux, *BSD, QNX, and emulated DOS mode in Windows. Could you please advise me on what would be the problem. Thanks.

To solve your problem try the following methods:
(1) Check the settings in Windows for the COM port you are using for your modem: ‘Start’ menu > ‘Control Panel’, open the ‘System’ control panel, click the ‘Device Manager’ tab, double click ‘Ports’, double click the problem port, click the ‘Port Settings’ tab. Firstly, note down your original settings in case you need to revert back.Then make sure that the settings are (change if necessary): ‘Bits per second: 115200′ ; ‘Data bits: 8′ ; ‘Parity None’ ; ‘Stop bits 1′ ; ‘Flow control: Hardware’.
(2) Check that the interrupt you are using for your COM port (IRQ4 for COM2 and IRQ3 for COM1) are NOT shared with any other device.
(3) Check in the ’system.ini’ file in the Windows directory and make sure that there is a line that says ‘comm.drv=comm.drv’ (without the quotes).
(4) Make sure that you are using the correct Win98 driver for your modem.