I have a brother 4100e and it will not receive faxes. When you call our fax line it rings as a normal telephone would. Is the fax machine or something else?? if it is the fax machine how can i fix it

To check your line quality is very simple. Unplug the fax from the telephone line and substitute it with a normal single line telephone. Make an incoming and outgoing call. if you hear any echo or crackle on the line when you are being quiet, then you have a noisy line and you should report it to your telephone company to have the line cleaned. If it is quiet then the problem lays with the fax. There are ways around the problem in the software of the machine but its quite complicated and best left to a trained brother engineer.

Step by step information at the link below.
Brother Fax T96
The F/T Mode is used to allow the fax machine and the telephones to share the same telephone line. When a call comes in, the fax machine and all extension telephones on that line will ring according to the number of rings you have set for the Ring Delay.
When the Ring Delay is completed, the fax machine will answer the call and determine if it is a fax call or a telephone (voice) call.
The fax machine can determine this by the signal it is receiving on the telephone line. If someone is sending a fax automatically , the sending fax machine will transmit a fax tone (a series of beeps every 3 seconds).
If your fax machine hears these tones, it will receive the fax.

If the fax machine does not hear any fax tones, it assumes it is a telephone (voice) call and will begin ringing the F/T ring tones (double ring) for the length of time you selected for the F/T Ring Time. These tones will only ring on the fax machine's handset (extension or external phones will not ring). At the end of the F/T ring time the fax machine will go into the receive mode in order to receive a manual fax.
(If the call was a voice call and was not answered, the caller will hear the fax receive tones also).

• If you answer the call before the fax machine(during the ring delay period) and determine it is a fax, you can transfer the fax to the fax machine for receiving.
  
  
• If you answer the call on an "extension" phone and hear a beep every 3 seconds (automatic fax) or silence (manual fax), press *51 or *91 for New Zealand (remote activation code) on the telephone keypad, wait to hear the fax machine turn on (chirping sounds) and then hang up.
  
  
• If you answer on the handset of the fax machine and hear a beep every 3 seconds or silence, press the Fax Start or Start/Copy key on the control panel of the fax machine and then hang up the handset.
  
  
• If you answer a call on an "extension" phone during the F/T Ring Time, you will hear the F/T ring tones.
  To release the call from the fax machine, press #51 or #91 for New Zealand (remote deactivation code) on the telephone keypad and you can speak to the calling party.
  
  
• If you pick up the handset of the fax machine during the F/T ring time, you may talk to the calling party immediately.

I have a fax line with packet8 which is a voip carrier. I am having trouble receiving faxes. I was told to change the baud rate on the fax to less than 9600. I don't know how to do it on my brother intellifax 4100e. can you advise?

Thanx,

Try calling the fax machine from your mobile and see if it picks up or if anything shows up on the screen of the fax machine. Is it possible that you have plugged the fax machine into the wrong telephone line? Try sending a fax to your mobile phone and see that the number is correct.

Hi,


Manual mode turns off all automatic answering functions unless you are using the Distinctive Ring feature or you are using an external answering machine on the same line as the Brother machine.


*Distinctive Ring is a function of your Brother machine that allows a person with one line to receive fax and voice calls through two different phone numbers on that one line. Brother uses the term "Distinctive Ring," but telephone companies market the service under a variety of names, such as Custom Ringing, Personalized Ring, Smart Ring, Ring Master, Ident-a-Ring, Ident-a-Call, Data Ident-A-Call, Teen Ring, SimpleBiz Fax & Alternate Number Ringing and BT Call Sign.

1. Setting the Receive Mode
   
   1. Press Menu.
   2. Press the up or down arrow key to select Initial Setup.
   3. Press OK.
   4. Press the up or down arrow key to select Receive Mode.
   5. Press OK.
   6. Press the up or down arrow key to select Manual.
   7. Press OK.
   8. Press Stop/Exit.
   
   

Receiving Faxes in Manual Mode

1. Lift the handset of a telephone that is on the same line as your Brother machine.
2. When you hear the sending machine's fax tones (short beeps that occur at regular intervals), do one of the following:
   • If the telephone you answered is near your Brother machine or connected to its EXT jack(socket), press Black(Mono) Start or Color(Colour) Start.
   • If the telephone you answered is not connected to or near your Brother machine, press *51 (*91 for New Zealand) on its dial pad.
3. Your Brother machine will produce receiving tones.
4. Replace the telephone handset. Your Brother machine will begin to receive the fax.

< Easy Receive (Fax Detect) >
The Easy Receive (Fax Detect) feature allows you to receive faxes in Manual Mode by simply lifting the handset of a telephone that is on the same line as the Brother machine. Your Brother machine will automatically generate fax receiving tones, at which point you can replace the telephone handset and wait for your fax to be received and printed.

Your Brother machine's Easy Receive (Fax Detect) feature is turned ON by default. To adjust your Brother machine's Easy Receive (Fax Detect) setting, please follow these steps:

1. Press Menu.
2. Press the up or down arrow key to select Fax.
3. Press OK.
4. Press the up or down arrow key to select Setup Receive.
5. Press OK.
6. Press the up or down arrow key to select Easy Receive or Fax Detect.
7. Press OK.
8. Press the up or down arrow key to select On, Semi or Off. *In some brother machines, Semi may not be in the options.
   If you choose Semi, your Brother machine will only answer an incoming fax if you answer using its handset or by pressing the Hook, Hook/Hold, Hold, Speaker Phone or Tel/R key on its control panel.
   
9. Press OK.
10. Press Stop/Exit.

Note Here are a couple of points to keep in mind:

• If Easy Receive (Fax Detect) is ON, but your Brother machine doesn't automatically answer the incoming fax when you lift the extension telephone's handset, press *51 (*91 for New Zealand).
• If you send faxes from a computer that is on the same telephone line as the Brother machine and the Brother machine intercepts the calls, turn Easy Receive (Fax Detect) OFF.

Please post your feedback and Vote if the problem resolved as per your satisfaction.

It could be some senders are sending over a DIGITAL PHONE LINE. All fax machines are ANALOG.

on the front display you will see a recieve button and you need to press this and you will see on the display it say either fax...fax/tel.. auto press the button until fax shows thsi means it is only being used as a fax so the line will auto pick up... if you set it to auto it will ring check the line and if it finds its a fax it will put it through as one if not it will ring you phone.. good luck

It appears that you have interference somewhere in the office. Have you recently gone to DSL in the office? A DSL line transmits a signal that requires a filter to receive only phone signals instead of the DSL signal. If the fax machines are receiving an unfiltered DSL signal, this would explain the interference. If this is not the case, the link below is a Brother's Solution to the NG Poor line quality. Best of luck to you with your fax problem.
Greg
http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/BSC/public/us/us_ot/en/faq/faq/000000/000200/000009/faq000209_002.html?reg=us&c=us_ot&lang=en&prod=mfc6490cw_all

The machine is set with the sleep mode as a default. The fax part can be changed to recieve a fax by pressing the fax mode button. Press it until it says Fax only, not F/T. F/T means Fax/Telephone. This mode would make it to where you have to pick up the reciever and press start when a fax comes in. The Fax only mode means it will pick up everytime a fax comes in automatically. Let me know if this was helpful. Please give my helping a rating. Thanks!

You will have to ask yourself the question "What has changed?" If you changed nothing, then something else has that is beyond your control. Now, you have to decide whether you are using a single telephone line for faxes and telephone, or whether you have "distinctive ring" also called "smart ring" by some companies. It is not a smart thing to use both. You can print a list of settings to see what the machine is set to do. Now if you want to use distinctive ring, set the ring pattern to the one you have chosen with the tel company. If you have chosen a double ring, and you have set your panasonic telephone to receive on 4 rings, then it will count all the rings and pick up after only 2 sequences. To see if this is the problem just remove the telephone base station from the system and then try to receive a fax.