From: Dan (dan_at_dbdigitalweb.com)
Date: Wed Apr 28 2004 - 07:43:42 PDT
>Q: What does it take to make a serial connection on a PC (Win98) work
(again)?
>
>Case: Yesterday, the connection from my PC to my Newton worked nicely at
>57600 Baud. This morning, alas, no more. When starting NBU, it immediately
>reported there were problems with the COM2-port I was using and wouldn't
>talk to my Newton. ;={
> I haven't rebooted between the two attempts, the machine had been
>running nonstop. There's been no software installed or anything deleted or
>twiddled with any config stuff.
>
>Steps taken: 1. I rebooted and tried again - no change.
> 2. I deleted the PS/2 mouse driver in the System setup (which had shown
>a yellow problem flag, but didn't report any actual conflicts), and
>rebooted (to force reinstallation of the mouse drivers).
> 5. Since then, I can nicely start NBU without getting error messages.
>Sweet, but the Newton doesn't connect - Dock fails with the message "The
>connection was stopped because there was no response.", all the while NBU
>doesn't do a thing, just stands there, hand in pockets, saying "Start by
>establishing a connection from your Newton PDA." - well, thanks, that's
>what I'm trying all the time! Arrgh!
> 4. I've tried two different cables. No change.
Ok first off go into device manager and check to make sure that your serial
port has not changed COM port numbers. Windows can assign different numbers
on the fly, although generally only at bootup. But it can happen if for
some reason it detects a conflict with say a modem (but this can happen even
though there is not any real conflict, just a crash of a program can make
this happen, unusual but it can happen).
If this is what has happened, your modem and serail port could have changed
COM numbers and becuase NBU detcts *something* on the same COM port you were
using, it does not complain.
Another thing to check is under the device manager, then serial port, then
port settings tab, check the FIFO buffers. They should be at the lowest
setting, I find this makes the most reliable connection.
And finally try removing the serial port entirely from the device manager.
Then reboot, it will reinstall and pull another copy of the serial port
drivers from the driver database. The working copy might have got corrupted
somehow. If you do remove the serial port, make sure you go in and set your
FIFO buffers to the lowest setting. Although it should connect at the
higher settings, at least mine always did. I just find the connection is
much more stable at the lowerst settings.
-Dan
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