[bearqst]

I have Gateway M680XL Laptop running XP Pro (2.3 Ghz, 1 GIG RAM), the system didn't come with a Serial Port. It has 4 USB's and 1 external display port.

I want to connect my GPS to the system. The USB's work fine with USB designed hardware. The GPS cable i.e. GPS to Serial connector works fine on another system with a Serial Port (my old laptop running W2K).

I purchased a USB to Serial converter and per the instructions one is suppose to:

Changing to proper XP driver

1 - Click "Start"->"Control Panel".
2 - Double click "System".
3 - Select the "Hardware" tab.
4 - Click the "Device Manager" Button. The Device Manager Window should open.
5 - Click the small "+" sign next to "Ports (COM & LPT)".

Here where my problem starts. The system does not have a "COM & LPT" ports under device manager. It does show the USB (HID) Ports.

I've googled and search this site and any others I could find. Nothing so far addresses a system that doesn't have the COM & LPT ports for configuration. Some of the converters I've seen noted on other posts here are not XP compatible.

Under System Info > System Summary > Components > Port > Serial it shows a "SoftV92 Data Fax Modem with SmartCP"

Any ideas as to where to go / look to get to where I can configure the COM & LPT ports.

TIA

[pronute]

You said it yourself your laptop does not come with a Serial Port, that's why there is no COM LPT port in Device manager, you bought a serial to USB adaptor however this is device is meant to convert a serial port on the computer into a USB port, not a serial port on a peripheral (your GPS) to a USB port, if this is what your doing then you have to contact the company that makes your GPS for the proper Adaptor.

[bearqst]

Let me clarify. The converter connects to a USB and converts it to Serial.

As I said, "I purchased a USB to Serial converter and per the instructions one is suppose.............."

My understanding is that the converters being produced are suppose to create "virtual" serial ports from ones USB.

As more and more laptop's are being built without serial ports, I was hoping someone else had already figured out a resolution for this. Since there wasn't a serial port with my system (as with others lately) there is no COM/LPT selection under device manager.

Serials are going the way of the dinosaur, unfortunately lots of external hardware still requires a serial port for use or administration.

[bearqst]

I think I've found a solution for most laptop users. All laptops (or least most) come with a PMCIA slot. So rather than try and create a virtual serial port one might want to use a Serial PCMCIA CardBus Adapter. I've found one at

http://www.startech.com/ststore/item...ID=CB2S650&mt=

The price is a bit more than that of the USB converter cables, but this gives you 2 serial com ports to use and doesn't use up a USB port.

[JohnWill]

I've also experienced problems with USB <-> Serial adapters, so I think the PCMCIA serial port recommendation might be the way to go.

[bearqst]

Thing I like most about the PCMCIA adapter over the USB <=> Serial is it's compatability with different OS's.

All the converters I reviewed were OS dependent or simply didn't function with XP or Linux, the PCMCIA adapter is suppose to work with almost all OS's

Windows 9x/ME/NT 4/2000/XP/Server 2003 and up, Linux 2.4x and up

[kiwiguy]

Many devices do not recognise the "virtual serial ports" created by a USB adapter, as I too have found.

As a result I made sure my latest laptop had a real serial port, as I use a few legacy applications that need one as well.

Its possible that the PCMCIA approach provides true hardware ports, if so that should work.

[NCTech]

This may be a dumb question but - did you plug in your usb --> serial adapter before looking for a serial port under device manager? If not, plug it in and look directly under device manager or under the usb root.

If you have plugged it in, what does XP detect it as?

[bearqst]

NCtech, I plugged it in and it wasn't detected at all. XP has special drivers for most USB <-> serial converters. I tried with both the native XP drivers and 3rd party drivers for the converter.

Kiwiguy, You've head it right on. Although I had major issues in getting the USB <-> Serial cable to work I did get the PCMCIA to work more effectively. But as you noted not all external hardware will work with Virtual Serial Ports.

The serial ports created by PCI and USB based adaptors are virtual serial ports. This means they can only be access through the operating system. If your software/hardware requires a specific IRQ and Address for the port, it is unlikely to work. However, if the software/hardware accesses the ports through the operating system, then it should work.

This may be the issuse with GPS units, as the communication needs to be via a specific IRQ and address for the port. I haven't as yet tried the PCMCIA Serial on any of my hardware firewalls, routers or manageable HUB's yet. Will do that next week sometime.

Best solution for the future, make sure your laptop has a serial port