All right, I guess I am the most stupid guy around here. The issue was hardware related, or rather simply using a wrong jack. OK, there are two telephone-like wire jacks at the back of the comp, labeled simply 1 and 2. While reconnecting all the plugs & wires (after fixing my video-card problems), I plugged the wire connecting my comp to a modem into the jack #1, which by now turned out to be a mistake. After struggling with all kind of possible ( most of them imaginary) problems, a simple thought to switch the jacks came to my mind (i. e. using #2 instead of #1). **_It worked!!!_** ( It would be helpful if anybody explained to me what is a damn functional difference between those jacks...)