Trouble with serial port on Gateway SOLO notebook

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

I've been Googling this till I'm cross-eyed, and can't seem to come up with
a fix. I'm using a Gateway SOLO 9550 notebook with XP Pro SP2. For the first
time since upgrading from Win98, I need to use the serial port. The port
worked fine when I used it in 98. You may have already guessed it won't work
now. I'm trying to communicate with a barcode scanner. I know the scanner
works, because I can communicate with it on a Dell desktop running the same
OS. On the Dell, I can even get it to output to HyperTerminal. On the
notebook, I have the serial port set in the BIOS to IRQ3 and e2f8 to force a
COM2. Windows shows it as installed and working. Is this something anyone
else here has run into?
Thanks in advance,
Bruce (email munged, so respond here please)