Aha.. alcatel usb modem.. i have one of those.. in combination with a VIA chipset it can cause XP to crash on USB activity (read modem). Cheach the via site for the USB filter patch or try modding your bios (for me the memory settings screwed things up).

For more details on this issue, see: http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=64

Regs,

Mike