Modem needs to be unistalled and reinstalled to work

Everytime I turn computer on and try to go online - I have to unistall and reinstall modem [ conexant hcfv90 56k rtad speakerphone pci ] To get it to work. Have xp home and dimension 8100 comp. Been working fine until tried downloading pictures from camera to comp. It would not do it. Camera tech said something wrong with xp system that it should automatically work- ended up having to manually install pictures. Can these two items be related somehow.