New Modem as Dead as Old One!

[vicky]

First the details: Dell Dimension 8200, Windows XP, 512 MB, V.90 56K modem--about 3 years old. The modem stopped making any noise at all, could not get dial tone. When the modem is plugged into the phone jack, all phones in the house are dead. Unplug the modem--everything works. Went through all checking & double-checking, finally came up that when modem kills the line there must have been some kind of power surge, possibly lightening. I took it to the shop, had a new v.92 Blaster put in. Everything worked fine at the shop, mail downloaded, etc. Got it home, plugged everything in, and NOTHING. Same as before. I am stumped. The laptop I am online with now is operating out of the same phone jack that the desktop has refused to use. Any ideas why this might have happened and what I should do about it? Would an external modem work any better, something about them being hardware driven rather than software?