laptops with serial ports

[birdygal]

Don't laugh but I really wouldlike to purchase a laptop with a serial port on it. I have some equipment that has a serial port and parallel port connection. I have not found it to work with the parallel port but operates flawless with the serial port the USB to serial port adapters don't work well enough to use I need better communication then they offer. Does anyone know of any brand of laptop that still carries the serial port connection I can't use a desktop. I don't need anything fancy just a CD drive does not even have to write just read. I am using an old IBM thinkpad that is biting the dust I do not want to buy a used one as I will be using this equipment for along time.

[SingSing]

Dell and Acer large laptops has // and serial ports, becase they are targeted as desktop replacement.

[throwingks]

Why not get a PCMCIA card?

[birdygal]

I have never heard of a pmcia adapter serial port. That may be worth a try where can I find one. I already have 2 sony laptops with no serial port those are the laptops I tried to get the USB adapter to work on.

[redwudz]

Here's one PCMCIA serial port card. Not cheap, though, at $111US.

http://www.provantage.com/quatech-sspr-100~7QTCK00J.htm

[birdygal]

newegg has one for $60 I am going to contact my equipments manufacter first before I take the plunge to see if they have ever tried using that approach. I am not the only one who has this equipment that has these problems Their software communication seems to be hit or miss some laptops and computers don't have a problem with a USB adapter that they supplied or on the parallel port. They also just supplied an updated driver that has helped some users on USB ports but I am still out of luck my Sony laptops will accept the new driver but it still looses communication while its running. I should ask though is there a way to shut down the wireless network on a Sony laptop maybe that might be the issue and not the actual adapter or driver. I don't have it on a network but maybe it is constantly looking for one so it is cutting into the interupt which is why I am having communication loss. I was told by tech support for my equipment that the software had to have 100 percent of the computers attention It does not use much memory but uses the interupt constantly. I had shut down hibernation, screen savers, I do not have any antivirus software on it I removed it as it is not needed.

[thevoelk]

HP still makes some of their laptops with serial ports. We had to hunt them down so we could work on our Cisco equipment at work. I'll see if I can get he model # for you. From what I remember, they were a pretty reasonable cost.

[SingSing]

IBM docking station has those ports, see : http://www-131.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=-840&storeId...ductId=8581830

[rallynavvie]

I doubt the wireless has anything to do with intermittent failure of your serial connection, especially if it's going through your USB. And almost all of the new Vaio laptops, in fact many new laptops, have switches to disable onboard wireless because you need to do so when using a laptop while in-flight.

I'm guessing the PCMCIA adapters will work just fine. I still use an old IBM ThinkPad 600X for work though since it's been such a great machine to work with. And anything you're troubleshooting via RS232 probably won't be taxing your old system. But I just got a new Vaio and ordered a serial adapter for my ExpressCard slot. Couldn't believe they made an ExpressCard serial adapter until I actually saw it

[birdygal]

What is an express card slot I saw that one also on newegg. I have not been keeping up with computer technology the last few years

[rallynavvie]

It's the new PCMCIA tech for PCI-E architecture. It's smaller than the current PC cards so will only work in an EC slot.

[Snakebyte1]

You can get a "USB to Serial" cable for around $40 or less.

[SingSing]

To many programs, a USB driven // and serial ports are different from // and serial ports on the motherboard.

[birdygal]

I have a USB to serial adapter my equipment came with It is not working right it seems to loose communication . I know the software is working along with equipment because it does not have this problem going directly to a serial port on an older laptop I have. I have 2 Sony laptops that I would love to use one of them instead of putting out more money on another laptop that has a serial port. I have it working now I just need to replace the laptop it is on. The pmcia CD drive broke on it. I lost the restore disk key so if the drive ever has a problem I can't even put another one in it. ( One reason why it is not good to have so many Windows manuals Oops I have 2 throw one away totally forgot that the Key was on the back of the manual for the laptops restore disk).

[birdygal]

sing sing they still use the same address though don't they . I can manually change the address and interupt through the software. My equipment manufacturer always blames something running in the backgroud stealing resources. I had my oldest Sony laptop stripped of all extra programs except the DVD and video applications and burning software It does have a DVD burner in it. I had asked earlier about the wireless network as this particular laptop has one I do have wireless internet connections on our 2 desktops they are connected to each other but not the laptops my laptops don't go online. The 2 sony laptops I have both have the same wireless though but not set up. My newer one comes up with a wireless network is in range do you want to connect though my older one has never done that. I'm really on the dumb side when it comes to networking.

[SingSing]

USB based port does not have a physical address. It has a virtually mapped address.
PCI based port does not have a physical address. It has a mapped address.
Motherboard based port has a physical address, in the nice lowest 12 bits I/O space.

[draganong]

seems to loose communication.

LOSE ! It is LOSE, not LOOSE, good God, I see this crap too many times.