connection with serial port

[+obelus]

hi!

 

i have a garmin etrex h gps with a serial cabel (homemade). at my office (windows xp) i can copy geocaches to my gps via the "geocaching.com" interface. at home i get the error message, that no gps was found. i have easy gps at home, too. i get the message, that the serial port could not be opened.

 

the cable must be allright, otherwise it would not work at my office. so there must be something with the serial port, that i never used with other devices before. there´s no error in the hardware manager. anyone has an idea, what i can try?

 

thanks

 

chris

[Motorcycle_Mama]

Did you install the drivers for the adapter onto your computer?

Have you tried a different port on the computer?

Edited December 17, 2010 by Motorcycle_Mama

[+GPSlug]

I assume this is a serial port from the motherboard, rather than USB-to-serial?

 

One thing I'd check for is that sometimes Windows can spontaneously decide that your GPS receiver is a serial mouse and sets up the driver for that. If you find a serial mouse installed in the device manager, uninstall it and reboot without the device plugged in.

 

I'd also check the BIOS settings to see if the COM port setting looks right.

[+obelus]

I assume this is a serial port from the motherboard, rather than USB-to-serial?

 

One thing I'd check for is that sometimes Windows can spontaneously decide that your GPS receiver is a serial mouse and sets up the driver for that. If you find a serial mouse installed in the device manager, uninstall it and reboot without the device plugged in.

 

I'd also check the BIOS settings to see if the COM port setting looks right.

 

thanks for replying!

 

indeed it is a serial port from the motherboard and no adapter. the bios settings look allright (irq 4; 03f8-03ff) and there´s only my ps2 mouse installed. but i once tried it with a serial mouse (to check the port), that didn´t work,too.

 

maybe i have to compare my com-port settings with the settings in my office to get a hint.

 

but thanks anyway

 

chris

[+GPSlug]

Is there a ribbon cable that could be connected wrong? A jumper?

 

It may just be dead. QC on serial ports got pretty lax towards the end of the time that they came standard.

 

Maybe connect a Christmas light LED to TX and GND and see if there's any activity from "copy somefile.txt com1".

Edited December 17, 2010 by GPSlug

[+Chrysalides]

If you have the right cables lying around, the easiest way to test a serial port is to do a loopback test, to see if it can see what it is sending.

[+obelus]

yes, maybe i have to check it´s funcionality. this would be the more difficult part. but i will try my best.

 

thanks