Anyone blowing out serial ports?

[+sbukosky]

I blew out the serial port on my motherboard some time ago and replaced it with a plug-in board. Now that seems to have taken a dive, no doubt from the hot connections to the GPSR. Anyone else having this problem. Solutions other than not doing hot connections?

 

Steve Bukosky N9BGH

Waukesha Wisconsin

[hellmaster]

Are you draining the static electricity from yourself before hot unplugging from the port? maybe thats the cause, touch the case for a few seconds before unplugging anything that is hot. or youcan get one of those things that attaches to your wrist and clips onto the frame of the case.

[+Seay me]

quote:

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Originally posted by hellmaster:

Are you draining the static electricity from yourself before hot unplugging from the port? maybe thats the cause, touch the case for a few seconds before unplugging anything that is hot. or youcan get one of those things that attaches to your wrist and clips onto the frame of the case.

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Static can damage computer wether they're powered on or off. Discharging static electircity is always good but I wouldn't recommend wearing the strap on a powered on system...in the event of an actualy shock from live components you are giving the electircity a perfect path to ground.

 

Personally I've never heard of plugging in a serial port in hot burning it out but that doesn't mean it cant happen. I'll take a look at some of my books and see if I can find another probable cause.

 

Chip

CompTIA A+ Certified Computer Technician

[+fizzymagic]

It is pretty difficult to blow an RS232 serial port via static; it would take quite a zap to do it. You also should not be able to blow a serial port via a short circuit; the spec requires that the port can withstand a short.

 

So it seems pretty unlikely that your ports have blown from hot-plugging a GPS or other device. More likely is that somehow you got 110V into the port somehow, or that the ports themselves were defective.

[+park2]

quote:

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I wouldn't recommend wearing the strap on a powered on system...

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The proper static straps have a current limiting resistor in the lead to prevent shocks. Personally I leave whatever I'm working on pluged in (although not necessarily on) so that the static strap has a path to ground through the 3rd pin of the power cable. (Or if I don't have a strap, I can just rest a hand on the chasis occasionally.)

 

Serial ports are quite tough with respect to static and hot swaps of cables, but I don't have a better suggestion.

[+Desert_Warrior]

quote:

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Originally posted by park2:

quote:

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I wouldn't recommend wearing the strap on a powered on system...

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The proper static straps have a current limiting resistor in the lead to prevent shocks. Personally I leave whatever I'm working on pluged in (although not necessarily on) so that the static strap has a path to ground through the 3rd pin of the power cable. (Or if I don't have a strap, I can just rest a hand on the chasis occasionally.)

 

Serial ports are quite tough with respect to static and hot swaps of cables, but I don't have a better suggestion.

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I concur... except that there is no limit to how cheap some things are made. Although I would EXPECT the current limiting resistor to be there, I would surely test it the first time.

 

Mike. KD9KC.

El Paso, Texas.

 

Seventeen minutes after her FIRST call for help, police officers arrived to find Ronyale White dead.

 

Prohibiting self defense is the ultimate crime. Police carry guns to protect themselves. What protects YOU ???

[fig]

quote:

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Originally posted by KD9KC:

I concur... except that there is no limit to how cheap some things are made.

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This probably applies to serial ports as well. I think you might have just had a bad run of hardware, in both cases. I would try another card, possibly from a different vendor. The reason I say this is, you didn't mention blowing out the port in the GPS. It's just a wire you are connecting, and I would think if you blew the port in the pc from the connection, the port in the GPS would blow as well. Just my theory, and since I am not an engineer, take that with a grain of salt. I just know that in my many years of computing, I have hot swapped a lot of serial equipment and not blown anything. I have also run across a lot of failed equipment with no apparent reason other than lack of quality. I had two identical network cards fail, and they were purchased at the exact same time. One failed immediately, and due to circumstances, I just thought it wasn't compatible. When the other failed shortly after, I found out they were both bad. Either bad luck, or bad QC procedures at the company that made them. I would give another card a try and just chalk it up to bad luck. One note though, I would turn the GPS off when actually connecting, just to be safe, and the grounding advice given would be a good safety measure. You just never know..

Fig

[+Gliderguy]

I remember this identical subject coming up in reference to PDA's and the Kyocera Smartphone. These have a serial interface and some people were blowing up serial ports occasionally when they "hot synced" their data.

 

I suspect either no one builds serial ports like they used to (possible, getting close to being a useless technology) or there is something to the whole issue, probably static related.

[+GOT GPS?]

Not good to plug or unplug serial devices while the computer is running. I found that doing just this causes the computer to fail to recognise serial devices that are plugged in.

 

One link:

http://www.bb-europe.com/product.asp?dept_id=79&sku=ESU-200%2F300

 

------------------------

My home page about GPS units and information

[+pizzachef]

Hey Steve,

if you've got USB port, wy not try a USB/serial adapter. I got one for 20 bucks on ebay..it works fine, and hot-swappable!

 

-pizzachef

[wapel]

quote:

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Originally posted by Gliderguy:

getting close to being a useless technology

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Agreed -- but why does it keep being used? the solution is convincing companies like garmin to use USB ports instead. I just got a brand-new computer with ONE serial port and 4 USB ports. It comes with a USB mouse, printer, keyboard -- so I'm practically out of them anyway without buying a USB hub. And my (also new) GPS, UPS, PalmVx (well, almost new) all want a serial port. I've got a Belkin USB/PDA adaptor, but I just wish these were all USB appliances, and that new computers shipped with twenty USB ports.

 

Grrr.

Warre

[+Firefishe]

quote:

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Originally posted by wapel:

quote:

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Originally posted by Gliderguy:

getting close to being a useless technology

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Agreed -- but why does it keep being used? the solution is convincing companies like garmin to use USB ports instead. I just got a brand-new computer with ONE serial port and 4 USB ports. It comes with a USB mouse, printer, keyboard -- so I'm practically out of them anyway without buying a USB hub. And my (also new) GPS, UPS, PalmVx (well, almost new) all want a serial port. I've got a Belkin USB/PDA adaptor, but I just wish these were all USB appliances, and that new computers shipped with twenty USB ports.

 

Grrr.

Warre

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--

 

Warre. My name is Stephen Brown, a/k/a, Firefishe here on the forums.

 

I posted a thread in GPS Units and Software about a month and a half ago about a new gps receiver project I had just started planning.

 

After hearing so much about the apparently overt use of serial connections, I have decided to incorporate USB connectivity in my new unit.

 

I expect this to take about a year, at least, but this new unit *will have USB!*.

 

Warm regards,

Stephen Brown (Firefishe)

 

[fig]

Stephen,

Please consider making it USB 2.0 or Firewire. For transferring large amounts of data, they can't be beat. I use a firewire MindStor to transfer pictures, and at 1gig in about 2 minutes, it can't be beat. Plain old USB takes almost an hour for the same amount of data. Serial port loading of 19mb on my Garmin V takes the same hour. Why can't we have a GPS with the whole country in detail with POI's loaded!! Can't wait for that one..

Fig