Older tech issue - Modem greys out on dial up

[raybay]

80 yr old lady who cannot afford high speed connection. Needs dial-up to communicate for medical & therapy care.
Decent, but old Gateway 1.2 Ghz Gateway 300S WXPH cannot connect because dial-up number cannot be entered.. All other systems work. Modem detects, works in other machines. Gateway does not work on any phone line at any house, but modem works in other Gateway. All other devices work well.
When access Control panel->Internet properties->Connections->Setup->Connection wizard->Connect to Internet->Setup connection manually or use disk, "connect using modem" is greyed out so cannot enter telephone number.
Modem tests fine in device manager. All other choices show "working properly." Ethernet works fine but she cannot afford any high speed connection. Diagnostics report every aspect working well. All systems tested in another Gateway where they work well. Telephony shows up as manual in Services (local) in Console Root and no errors or warning elsewere in console root.
It is a motherboard issue, we presume, because replacing with a variety of modems makes no difference.
What am I missing?
It has been so long since I connected somebody to dial-up, that I could have made basic error. I do not recall ever seeing this problem.
We are doing the work gratis as she is unable to pay or buy another system.
It appears we will buy her motherboard unless somebody wiser and more experienced has some good guesses.

 

[Tmagic650]

Have to tried reinstalling/repairing Windows on this Gateway?

 

[raybay]

^Thanks for the reply, Tmagic650. I have tried your suggestion with no success,
but our problem may be solved.
We have since fingered out that the Telephony services were not being "started" on in Component services... (Administrative Tools -> Component Services -> Services (Local) ->
'The Startup type was "Automatic" when it should have been "Manual" and the "Service Status" was blank instead of "started".
Once we clicked on Service Status to Initiate "Start"and then went to Telephony Properties (Local Computer) to "Recovery" to "Restart the Service on first, second, and subsequent failures,,, then to Dependencies to Plug and Play, then everything seems to be working Ok.
But it was a tough two days of relearning, since I haven't done much modem work since the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, and Ute days.
You probably know the feeling up there in Big Sky country.

 

[Tmagic650]

Ok Raybay,
with your great computer knowledge I thought you might have done everything hardware wise... I do a lot of PC phone modem installations/repairs, but I most always leave startup type "automatic" alone

 

[raybay]

We did, as well. Which is why it took three days... once this peculiar setup worked, I shuddered and let it be.

 

[raybay]

It was Microsoft Tech Support that suggested we use "Manual"

 

[Tmagic650]

Cool I'll keep this in mind...

 

[raybay]

It didn't work before. Spent days and days. Don't know for sure why it works now, but it does... have since talked to a Satellite guy who found the same thing... Automatic didn't work.
But the key point on both that made the difference, and stopped the "Grey out" was that the service had not been "Started" and clicking on "Start" was critical... That section was blank. though it should have been implemented by the Gateway operating system install.