how to enable serial ports

Well i just bought my son the iquest from leapfrog with the mindstation. You have to hook it up to a serial port on the pc. I have 2 and have my external modem hooked to one port and the mindstation hooked to the other. It is not recognizing the second port. How do i make sure that it is enabled and how do i enable it if it is not enabled? Simple instructions please. I have checked on control panel/settings under ports and it only shows com1 and lpt1(printer here) so i am assuming that i have 2 ports they are on the back of the machine and that 1 is not enabled right?? don't want to cause other problems with the pc but have to get this thing working!! help please???

 

What make and model PC do you have?

 

not a specific make and model i bought it at a computer show about a year ago it is a pentium 3 800 i believe.

 

Hi jack426

You will need to get into the BIOS (or setup) By pushing a key when the system boots up. Which key depends on what bios you have. Look on the screen during boot up as sometimes it shows what key you need to use. When you are in setup look for something like integrated peripherals under which you should see a setting for com1 and com2 be sure both are enabled and save changes when you exit the setup program.

From BrianF

list of different key combinations used to enter bios setup

Entering CMOS For Different Motherboards
Press Tab during boot=Emachine
Press del during boot= (AMI, Award).
Press Esc during boot= Toshiba.
Press F1 during boot= (Toshiba; Phoenix; Late model PS/1 Value Point and 330s).
Press F2 during boot = (NEC).
Press F10 when square in top RH corner of screen= (Compaq).
Press Ins during boot=IBM PS/2 with reference partition.
Shift Ctrl Alt + Num Pad del= - Olivetti PC Pro.
Ctrl Alt ? =some PS/2s, such as 75 and 90.
Ctrl-Esc = Misc Puters
Ctrl Ins= some PS/2s when pointer at top right of screen.
Press reset twice= some Dells.
Ctrl Alt Enter= Dell.
Ctrl Alt Esc=AST Advantage, Award, Tandon.
Ctrl Alt + =Misc Puters
Ctrl Alt S= Phoenix.
Ctrl Alt Ins= (Zenith, Phoenix)
Ctrl S =(Phoenix).
Ctrl Shift Esc= Tandon 386.