Loosing COM Port ??

[Pete Moscatt]

Hi All,

I am running Windows 7 Ultimate (32bit) and fully updated.

There is an application I use that requires the use of the Coms port, namely
to PTT a Transmitter.
All has been running as expected until recently - when I now run the
application it reports that the Com port is not Open.
I know the port is active as during boot up I hear the PTT on the
transmitter key-up so I know that the BIOS and hardware are all good.
In Device Manager everything is good and no reported issues.

How can I track what is causing the port to become in-active?

Have a great Easter.

Pete Brisbane, Australia.

 

[Sunny Bard]

How can I track what is causing the port to become in-active?

Try the SysInternals "handle" utility

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896655

If that doesn't show the culprit, then look in device manager to see
whether you have any other real or emulated serial ports, such as on a
docking station, bluetooth radio, or USB->RS232 dongle whose device
driver might have clashed with your real COM1:

 

[Pete Moscatt]

Thanks Sunny. I'll let ya know how it turns out.

Pete


"Sunny Bard" wrote in message

How can I track what is causing the port to become in-active?

Try the SysInternals "handle" utility

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896655

If that doesn't show the culprit, then look in device manager to see
whether you have any other real or emulated serial ports, such as on a
docking station, bluetooth radio, or USB->RS232 dongle whose device
driver might have clashed with your real COM1:

 

[BillW50]

In

Hi All,

I am running Windows 7 Ultimate (32bit) and fully updated.

There is an application I use that requires the use of the Coms port,
namely to PTT a Transmitter.
All has been running as expected until recently - when I now run the
application it reports that the Com port is not Open.
I know the port is active as during boot up I hear the PTT on the
transmitter key-up so I know that the BIOS and hardware are all good.
In Device Manager everything is good and no reported issues.

How can I track what is causing the port to become in-active?

Have a great Easter.

Hi Pete! You know inactive sounds like it is going to sleep. Under
properties look for some sort of power management. Maybe it is trying to
save power and it is turning off.

Happy Easter to you too. ;-)

 

[Paul]

Thanks Sunny. I'll let ya know how it turns out.

Pete

One other detail. The serial port isn't always named \device\serial,
so searching on serial won't always give a result, if you use Handle.
Serial works if you have "real" COM ports, such as the COM ports
on the SuperI/O on the motherboard. The serial port(s) in that
case, would be next to the PS/2 connectors in your computers I/O
plate area.

My current motherboard doesn't have COM ports, so I added some USB RS232
adapters. One goes to my UPS, the other goes to a backup dialup modem
(for when broadband is down). This is what Handle reports. These ports
use a driver that creates Virtual COM Ports. When I collected this,
I used HyperTerminal built into WinXP to "keep the port busy" just
for this test. HyperTerminal is pointed to COM3 (VCP1) while the
UPS control software is pointed at COM3 (VCP0). If you don't have
HyperTerminal, it's possible something like PuTTY might work.

ups.exe pid: 1072 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
98: File (---) \Device\VCP0
hypertrm.exe pid: 3404 ComputerName\UserID (claims to use COM3)
E0: File (---) \Device\VCP1

It may take some effort, to establish exactly what the Device name should
be. The nature of the driver software used for your serial port may
give a hint. The FTDI drivers for my adapters talked about creating
Virtual COM Ports, so when I saw "VCP" it all made sense.

You can get PuTTY here, if you need a tool to access the COM ports
and make them busy. Since there is no HyperTerminal on Windows 7,
this would be a free replacement. I was using this, for things
like accessing the console port on a Linux box.

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

putty -serial COM3 -sercfg 38400,8,n,1,X

HTH,
Paul