USB to Serial woes

WinXP Home / Intel

Got a datalogger with serial port. New PCs only have USB. Got a Lindy USB-to-Serial cable + driver CD; installed driver; hook up; create new connection as datalogger instructions but did not know which COM port to select; tried both 1 & 3 as displayed. No connection.

Tried to add new COM 4 & COM 5 (cannot remember how); didn't worry about IRQ as "No Conflict" was displayed in Device Manager. No connection.

On the laptop tried to change the port to the IR port which is never used - GOT A CONNECTION. Downloaded lovely data. Wait for next month end to try it all again.

No luck at all.

Reinstalled PL-2303 driver which several USB/Serial people seem to use. No connection.

Tried all I can think of. No connection.

Does anyone have a magic formula for USB to Serial?

Thanks

 

I do not know what are you using that adaptor for..., but some people change the adaptor for another make or buy it from another location due to problems with the chip; in my case work with COM1 and setting it with the COM1 at my application. Let us know!:confused

 

Not sure of meaning. Do you mean Lindy cable is no good?

The only chips I know about are in the datalogger or in my laptop. Can't readily change them.

Or, do you suggest a cable from some other supplier? Could be right. I have had lots of stuff from Lindy which has worked well, so I just got their USB/Serial.

 

USB-Serial cables have a small circuit in the case in the serial side (you can not see it, but it is there) and the main component is a chip mainly from two providers (I can not remember their names) one of them usually gives problems with the drivers. So, maybe that is the problem with your cable.:confused

 

OK. Thanks for responses.

I had a PL2303 driver/chip cable adaptor.

Resulting from reading here got a FTDI chip/cable. Didn't install the driver on the CD - instead got the latest driver off the web & installed that.

It took 3 quick goes ( only a few minutes ) to setup a new Incoming Connection in XP and bingo I can connect every time.

As it turns out it uses COM4 - why, I don't know, but it works.