magicJack and MagicJack Plus Support, Reviews, FAQs and Hacks

EarloftheWest · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 01 Sep 2008 Posts: 3

I ordered my MJ on the 21st of August and it arrived on the 24th using standard shipping. Impressive.
I plugged the thing into my main computer and it worked. Since this is the family computer and we all have accounts this was an unacceptable permanent solution.
My brother in law had a spare HP Vectra P3 600MHz 128MB machine that he wasn't using. My solution had presented itself.
There was no NIC card in it and I had a spare. After reseating the card a few times it would connect to the internet. I downloaded all my updates for XP, defragged the hard drive and this little guy was working like a champ.

Prior to my MJs arrival, I chatted with tech support and they indicated that it would need a USB 2.0 port (which the Vectra didn't have) so I went to Fry's and spent $15 for a 2 port card. (I did try it with the 1.1 USB port and it worked. I still think I'll leave it plugged into the 2.0 port and keep the card.)
I have this plugged into my whole house wiring. We currently have Comcast telephone. My house has 2 jacks at each phone location. One jack is for Comcast and the other for MJ.
I notice a difference in sound quality between Comcast and MJ. I will continue to play with the volume settings and see if that helps. My outbound sound is fine (from what others tell me) but I need my inbound volume to be a bit louder. I increased the volume in the MJ softphone interface. I'll turn it up all the way and see if that makes a difference.
I too had a problem with CID. The 100k Ohm 1/4 watt hack worked like a charm.

The Mrs. isn't happy about the CID only showing the number and not the name. I would like to see the software compensate for this. I could easily enter the numbers with the persons name into the contacts section of the software. I would expect the software then to display the name of the associated CID number. This should be on MJs todo list. Or, MJ could just charge an additional $10 a year for a person to get CID with name.

I would like to see MJ sell a fix for the no CID problem that many customers are experiencing. Sell me a device for $10 including shipping and have the marketing guys spin it to say that it compensates for some phones not following standard manufacturing or some other marketing thing like that rather than just avoiding the issue all together.

One poster brought up an interesting point about using MJ. If I have it on a dedicated computer, it will cost more per month for electricity. The poster said $18 a month in additional electricity. If that's the case, MJ does become less attractive an option.

I also thought about Skype in Lieu of MJ. Does anyone have any experience between the two?

Well, that's the story so far. Any comments?

Edit:
I forgot to mention that I'm running my Vectra without a monitor. Using logmein.com when I need to access it.

Google · AdSense

booyah5 · Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 12:29 am Post subject:

I really doubt that the computer will cost $18/month, but I could be mistaken. My Dell Inspiron 530 Core Duo 2.0ghz uses 70watts and 52.41kwh power draw (as measured with my kill-a-watt).

But I'm running MJ on that thin client so often mentioned here, and I think they use around 10watts. I'll be putting my meter on that soon to confirm.

I do have a stupid echo with my MJ, and that doesn't look to be going away any time soon.

Jack Elation · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 09 Sep 2008 Posts: 3

I got mine today, it works as advertised thus far, yea!

kcaj · magicJack Apprentice Joined: 13 Jun 2008 Posts: 14

I've had my magicjack for two months now. Some days it works great, but mostly it don't. There's an annoying echo. I've 'tuned' the TCP settings on my computer for best throughput, but seems to not make any difference. Speakeasy speed tests for my DSL indicates normal operation and the speed test at http://miranda.ctd.anl.gov:7123/ is consistently good.

I'm ready to write off magicjack as a bad investment.

amex202 · Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 2:56 pm Post subject:

Mine has been fine on my thin client.
_________________
Magicjack thin client forum http://www.magicjack-forum.com/forum/index.php

taflocks · Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 3:06 pm Post subject: