There are many problems with my comp,
Pentium II
266Hz? 300 something?
Windows 98
CD/DVD, CD/RW, external
56K modem

About a year ago, this computer just started to cop out, or whatever, it starts up with BIOS every time, without a date or time, we can't connect to the internet through AOL, none of the CD drives read CD's, and I wouldn't have cared before, but we just ordered DSL, and now we want to set it up on this computer too.

When i check the properties of the modem, it says its working properly, same with the CD drives. But nothing works! I need some direction here, any help is appreciated.

No date and time in the BIOS. When you get into Windows 98, does that show the wrong date and time?

Set the date and time to be correct then shut down the PC normally. Unplug it from the mains electricity. Leave it off for 5 minutes.

Plug in and switch on again. If Windows 98 reports the date incorrectly again (it will probably say the year is in the 1990s), then your motherboard battery is dead. That could also explain why your drives aren't working properly and, maybe, why your having trouble using your modem. Batteries on Pentium II systems are usually quick and easy (and cheap) to replace - let us know if that's what appears to be the problem

Sorry for the late reply. The new battery fixed the BIOS and CD drive problems, but the modem is still not working. I'll explain again what's happening with the modem.
Its on COM1, a US Robotics 56K Voice Win modem. When we go through device manager or control panel, it says its enabled and working. But when we get to our AOL screen that asks to search for a modem, it never finds a modem. It just keeps on searching, and we have to close it down with Task manager. Also, we have a new DSL modem, can we use that as our default modem? Thanks for all your help.

I don't know much about AOL other than the fact that it often causes problems. If you disconnect your US Robotics modem, I would expect the AOL search process to pick up your DSL modem as the default modem to use.

Do you know what version of AOL you're running? If you've "upgraded" to AOL 9.0, you might find that that's your problem - the latest version appears to be very resource-hungry and you might find that your Pentium II 266/300 is too slow for the AOL software to manage what it's trying to do.