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Serial Port Problems

3851 Views 6 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  Harry, 
H
I have a P4C800-E motherboard. Have a Ten-Tec shortwave radio attached to the serial port. Had a near lightning strike recently, messed up a few things in the house. Computer controlled radio stopped working. Sent radio to Ten-Tec, they replaced RX232 chip, checked radio, said it is working OK and sent it back. Plugged radio in to computer and doesn't work. Cannot operate this radio independent of the computer, it is computer control only. Attached a Uniden scanner radio to serial port and it does not seem to work under computer control. Works fine independent of computer. Device manager says the serial port, COM 1, is working. Otherwise the computer seems to work fine. I have it on a APC UPS.

Any suggestions on trouble shooting the serial port?

Any suggestions on which PCI card to buy if I decide the motherboard port is not working and I need to add 1 or 2 serial ports with a PCI card?

Any suggestions on setting up PCI card? Which IRQ to use? Com 1 is 4. Disable COM 1 and use 4?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
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L
Definately sounds like the port died.
First,disable it in the BIOS.
Boot to windows and make sure it is gone in the device manager.
Then shut down,reenable it,boot up and let windows redetect it.
See if it works then.
If not,just disable it in the BIOS,if it's no good it will free up resources.

Any generic serial PCI card will do.
Windows will automatically assign system resources to the card.
If you end up with a conflict,just put it in a different PCI slot.
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Volt-Schwibe
as harsh as adding a serial card sounds, i have done it once.

it was really the only way.

although, i am sure if someone had leet skills, they could replace the diode/resistor that fried, but it's not something to try to learn with your computer.

and unfortunately, the mainstream tech attitude is that you can't repair a motherboard anyhow. (even though you can, but because the attitude is such, noone will tell you anything about how.)
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H
leroys1000,
Thanks, I intend to follow your suggestions. The motherboard bios has two serial ports. I am using the 9 pin port. What is the second port?
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L
You may have 2 serial connectors,but,if the other one has 15 pins,
then it is probobly a joystick/MIDI port.
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H
Dug out my motherboard manual. The second port is an add on. Header not supplied with board.

I ordered a PCI card with two serial ports from Newegg. Hope that cures my problems.
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H
Just to close this problem out. I installed the serial port card and drivers and have my radio back. So serial port was dead. I do have some radio software operation issues, but that is the subjuct for another fourm!

Thanks for the replies, this is a great forum.
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