
   Try putting one of the IRQs for your COM ports onto IRQ2. The hardware will
automagically wrap IRQ2 to IRQ9 on AT class machines (eg, anything with high
IRQs). This is what I'm doing on my set up right now. 
   I've got COM2 on IRQ2 (really IRQ9 - address it this way in software), COM1
on IRQ3, SoundBlaster on IRQ5, LPT1 on IRQ7, and my ATI BusMouse port on one of
the interrupts in between. Works just great.
   If you need even more, there's a text file floating around somewhere that
details how to hack up any serial card (and probably any others) to work on the
higher IRQs. It basically involves cutting the trace to the low IRQ and running a wire over the a high IRQ pin on the 16bit expansion bus.

  It will be best to put the modem's COM port onto IRQ2/9. This will be the 

first IRQ serviced by the system, giving the modem a better response -- 
especially handy under multitaskers like OS/2 -- which I'm running with no
problems.

Justin