M810lr com port

[Guest]

I have a systen with a M810lr motherboard an AMD K7 1.33gh processor, and 512 mb mem. I added 2 com ports and 1 serial port (got card and software at CompUAS)because I needed another conport to interface a palm pilot. I have another device that will only work on com port 1 or 2, but when I try to use 1 or 2, I get message "can't open port"
All diagnostics tell me that the port is installed and is working properly. I even tried to force a connection through Hyper Terminal with the same results.
This is a new system and I think I may be overlooking some setting. Any ideas on how to correct this or does the board have a blown com port?

 

[khha4113]

Does your mobo come with 2 built-in <b><i>SERIAL</b></i> (as you called <b>COM</b>) ports?

I added 2 com ports and 1 serial port (got card and software at CompUAS)because I needed another conport to interface a palm pilot.

You only can physically have 2 Serial (COM) ports (9-pin or 15-pin connector) installed in your comp (1 and 2), COM 3 and up are virtual (non-existent) COMs.

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

 

[girish]

You only can physically have 2 Serial (COM) ports (9-pin or 15-pin connector) installed in your comp (1 and 2), COM 3 and up are virtual (non-existent) COMs

Even DOS since 1981 provides for 4 COM ports and 4 LPT ports, WindowsNT provides for upto 256 of them!

9 pin or 25 pin (or even 10 wire FRC) is a matter of physical connectivity, they carry the same RS232C signals, it doesnt really matter.

girish

<font color=red>Nothing is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

 

[girish]

I added 2 com ports and 1 serial port

??? COM and serial ports are one and the same.

check the IRQs the ports are using, COM 1 and 2 will use 3 and 4, you must have a couple of more spare to assign to your new serial ports, which is actually difficult thing. Check if it is sharing the IRQ with some other device, try disabling that device for a while (if its USB or Audio or LAN device) If you have a serial mouse, it would have been much easier to buy a PS/2 mouse and free the serial port for your Palm!

girish

<font color=red>Nothing is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

 

[khha4113]

Even DOS since 1981 provides for 4 COM ports and 4 LPT ports, WindowsNT provides for upto 256 of them!

I didn't say you can't have COM 3 and up, but they are <b>not</b> physically exist in the system as COM1 and 2 (<i><font color=blue>virtual</i></font color=blue>), and they use same IRQs either with COM1 or 2.

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

 

[Guest]

If you can only have 2 physical ports, why would CompUSA sell the add on com/serial port card? There must be a way to make them work, or maybe a port splitter box to allow more than 1 device at a time to use a com/serial port as long as the devices are only running 1 at a time.
I have been looking at other boards, and have found 1 that has 1 printer port, 2 com/serial ports, 2 onboard usb ports, and an expansion board with 2 add on usb ports. This would solve the problem, but the cost is too high.

 

[girish]

In those older systems, I/O ports used standard IRQs, but they had to be set by jumpers on the I/O card. The system had 15 IRQs, out of which 3 and 4 were assigned to com1 and com2, but you could add two more com/serial ports by setting their IRQs (by jumpers) to a unused one, say 5 or 9 or 10.

those days not too many devices were available hence even 15 IRQs with 4 of them free for general use seemed to be a lot! these days you know even if it were 31, they woouldnt be enough!

BTW there isnt a virtual serial port, it still needs and interface (not the physical 9/25 pin connector but circuits that connect it to a serial device. Every serial modem has a onboard com port which you can set as com3 or com4. it doesnt have any connectors, the port is present on the card and is directly connected to the modem chip (actually it is present in the modem chip)!

girish

<font color=red>Nothing is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

 

[girish]

here is a simple experiment, when you install an internal modem, dont install the modem driver directly. go to Control Panel->Add New Hardware->Ports and show it the driver directory, it will install a serial port named by the manufacturer. Then you can install the modem on that port!

This is the third <b>real</b> port in your system!

girish

<font color=red>Nothing is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

 

[Guest]

I am not trying to install a modem, that is installed and working on com 4. The device is another smaller computer does dairy heard data management directly from the equipment controlling such things as feed, milk production and all other records needed. It can use only com1 or com2. They also have a PDA that was to use a com port.
I have a temp solution. I turned off the com5 and com6 and lpt2 and restarted the system with a serial mouse connected to com1 and then installed serial mouse software and the mouse works, no more "can't open port". Then I got a Palm Connect usb kit and made the Palm pilot usb compatible.
Tomorrow I will try set up the Boumatic 2045 again and see if it works as well. The serial card is not usable at this time, but I will keep trying until everything works as it should.

 

[girish]

I just tried to show khha an example.

anyway, if that is the case, use the legacy ports (com1 and com2) for your PDA and mouse. your UPS can work with COM3 or 4. if possible switch to a PS/2 mouse that will free one COM port.

I guess you should remove all the ports and reboot the system, as each of the ports is reinstalled, then you can assign its usage. Perhaps the interrupt sharing is not letting you use them!

<font color=red>Nothing is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>