Meridian Gold with no serial port laptop

[Professor Oak , Ash and Brock]

Could anyone provide insight on a quality USB to serial port adaptor that will work with a laptop lacking a serial port? The laptop is a Dell 5100 running XP.

[+Stunod]

Magellan offers one HERE, but it is kinda expensive. You can find cheaper ones at any computer store, but good luck getting them to work. There have been a lot of problems vented in these forums about getting the adaptors working right.

 

"Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand."

[+Thomas & Dingo]

I have had no problems using the Belkin N10117 usb to serial adapter with my Compaq laptop. Just remember install the driver before connecting the adapter to the usb port of your laptop. If you do it the other way around you can have major problems.

 

"We never seek things for themselves - what we seek is the very seeking of things."

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

 

[+eremite]

I second Thomas & Dingo. I've got the Blkin thing, too. Easy to set up and I've never had a problem w/ it; works like a charm. And i'm on a laptop running XP (home) as well.

 

-eremite

 

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use." -Galileo Galilei.

"The indoor life is the next best thing to premature burial." -Edward Abbey

[+Geofool]

quote:

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Originally posted by Thomas & Dingo:

I have had no problems using the Belkin N10117 usb to serial adapter with my Compaq laptop. Just remember install the driver before connecting the adapter to the usb port of your laptop. If you do it the other way around you can have major problems.

 

"We never seek things for themselves - what we seek is the very seeking of things."

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

 

http://www.geocachingwa.org

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I was thinking about using a laptop with my eTrex Lengend. The laptop dosen't have a DB9 port. What driver would you use with the USB adapter? Does the adapter come with a driver?

 

GF

 

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Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

[dboggny]

if you are running a meridian gold and have an sd card and card reader, you can avoid the serial/usb connection all together. all it takes is an SD card, a card reader/writer and learning how to use gpsbabel (which is 1, worth it and 2, very easy). you can do everything with this system including: loading waypoints, loading maps, downloading tracks to your mapsend stuff, even making firmware updates via the sd card. its hard for me to explain, so, if anyone needs a quick lesson, contact me via email and i will write out a detailed set of instructions. also, if you use aol instant messenger, yahoo messenger or msn messenger, i would be willing to guide you in real time. also, you can easily find me in clayjars chat room... gcchat.clayjar.com or #geocaching in irc.

also, i have gotten the usb/serial connection to work without many issues. i can help you out with that too. the good thing is, i worked through all the problems so i can probably help out a bit.

danny

 

SR and dboggny.